


bad habits

by mandaestella



Category: Actor RPF, Alexbelle, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies), The Hunger Games (Movies) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Bartenders, F/M, Vanderpump Rules AU, unshockingly that is not a tag that exists yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-01-07 11:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandaestella/pseuds/mandaestella
Summary: they are all in los angeles because they want something. alex is a bartender, living and working alongside his group of best friends, all of whom are aspiring actors or models or musicians. alex, on the other hand, just wants to own his own bar someday, a dream that might be furthered by the fact that his girlfriend is restaurant royalty. but when a new bartender comes to town, alex might realize that she is the one he really wants.





	1. she got that rich girl l.a. vibe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / love, take it off  
> / she love that dirty talk  
> / pushing her up, against the wall  
> / white wine and bubblegum  
> / she got that rich girl l.a. vibe  
> / she whip it good in her daddy's 95  
> champagne and sunshine by plvtinum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is entirely the fault of gracie and emily and the fact that i watch far too much vanderpump rules.

They were all in Los Angeles because they wanted something.

For Alex’s girlfriend Tristan de Vries, it was to be an actress. She went on auditions and did commercials and made ends meet by waitressing at Lux. Alex’s two best friends were also in the industry; Jack was an actor, trying to break out from underneath the shadow of his famous parents, and Dayo was a model, just like Alex. The three of them all bartended at Lux on nights and weekends, leaving the days open to chase their dream jobs, although lately all they had really been doing was partying and sleeping in late.

Everyone at Lux wanted to be something else, all of them aspiring actors or models or dancers or musicians. The difference with Alex was that modeling was just a way for him to pass his time; what he really wanted was to own his own restaurant and bar, not that he would ever bring that up to Tristan. She wouldn’t understand. 

Although it didn’t really matter what Tristan thought about him anymore because they had broken up this afternoon. Again.

The two of them had been together for two years; they lived together, and even so it felt like they broke up every couple of months, usually accompanied by a giant hissy fit from Tristan and stony silence from Alex. He used to fight with her at the beginning, but even that got boring after a while. 

He wasn’t even really sure why they had broken up this time. All he knew was that after his shift at Lux last night, he had gone to Jack’s apartment, just a few doors down from their own, had a few beers, and fallen asleep on his couch. He had woken up the next morning to Tristan standing over him, phone in hand. She was pissed.

“Alexander!”

He rolled over, burying his face in the couch cushions which was a dangerous game in and of itself, considering the fact that that couch had been in the apartment since Alex had been the one living there with Jack. “What?” he grunted. His head was pounding, his mouth was dry, and he was in serious danger of throwing up on her. He shouldn’t have had that last beer last night. Or the first five probably.

“I’ve been calling you for hours.” He knew without even looking at her that she was tapping her foot at him. “We were supposed to go to lunch.”

He rolled over, shielding his eyes from the sun and feeling around on the floor for his phone. Sure enough, it was twelve thirty and he had ten missed calls. “Sorry,” he mumbled, thinking about sitting up but changing his mind when his head started spinning. “My bad.”

Apparently, Tristan did not think that was a sincere apology, and after he managed to drag himself back to their apartment and down a gallon and a half of Gatorade mixed with Pedialyte, she broke up with him. Again. “Just get out, Alex,” she said coldly, legs crossed and head buried in her phone, not looking up at him. “I don’t even want to see you right now.”

He just shrugged, wandering back down the hallway to Jack and Jackie’s apartment. This happened all the time. It was nothing new to any of them.

Jackie regarded him coldly as he walked in the door. She was Tristan’s best friend, and she would never be on his side, even if he was actually in the right for once. “Again?” Jackie asked, knowing what was going on without him even having to say a word. 

Alex shrugged. “Yep. Guess so.”

Jackie let out a big sigh, grabbing a bottle of wine from the bar cart in the corner and leaving the apartment. Alex could hear her stomping down the hall, knew she was already dialing Jen’s phone number and telling her to meet them at his apartment. Typical.

Jackie had Jack had been together for a long time; they were the ones who had introduced Alex to Tristan. In addition to being a professional dancer waiting for her big break, Jackie was also a waitress at Lux, as was Jen, Dayo’s girlfriend and the third member of their little coven. Like Alex, Jack, and Dayo, the three girls were always together, and sometimes Alex thought they lived just to terrorize him. 

Sure enough, Dayo came walking in about ten minutes later, Jen disappearing behind him and making her way down the hall. “Dude,” Dayo said. He too looked like he had just woken up. “What the hell did you do?”

Alex muted the television. He had had it on low, still waiting for Jack to wake up. He had stayed up even longer than Alex, playing Overwatch and eating Doritos, the remnants of which were still on the coffee table in front of Alex. “Nothing,” he said, rubbing his eyes as if that would make his headache go away. “She’s overreacting. As usual.”

Dayo flopped down onto the couch next to him. “The girls are pissed at you.”

“When aren’t they?” Alex sighed.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked, appearing in the doorway and looking just as rough as Alex had guessed he would. 

“Alex is single again.”

Jack hopped over the back of the couch, grabbing Alex’s Gatorade and downing half of it in one gulp. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. How long do you think that will last?”

“She said it was for good this time,” Alex said nonchalantly. He knew better. “Can I stay here?”

“Obviously.”

Alex had to work at Lux that night; thankfully all three of the girls had the night off because they had planned a weekend trip to Palm Springs. He didn’t think he could face an entire night of awkward conversation and dirty looks. He played a couple of hours of Xbox with the guys before they all had to get ready to go, putting on black pants and buttoning up their shirts, except for Alex who left his mostly open because he got more tips that way.

It was a short walk to work, just a couple of blocks, the August heat heavy and thick. Alex was sweating through his shirt, and it was already sticking to his back by the time they walked through the back door of the restaurant, clocking in at the computers before heading to the dining room to find their manager.

“Lev!” Alex said, sitting down across from her. She was at one of the tables in the main room, the schedule for September spread out in front of her. Alex could see his name pencilled into a lot of the tiny boxes. “Which bar am I at tonight?”

Leven looked up, tapping her pen on her chin. “Let’s put you at the back bar,” she said. “You can handle it by yourself, right?”

Alex pouted at this. Lux had two bars, one in the lounge area just off the main dining room and one in the garden in the back. If you worked the lounge bar on a weekend night, you were guaranteed to make a few hundred dollars at the very least. The garden bar… not so much. “A toddler could handle it,” he grumbled. “Come on, Lev.”

She shrugged at him, going back to the schedule. “We’ve got another bartender starting soon, and after that we can open the garden bar to customers again.” One of their bartenders had unexpectedly quit the weekend before, walking out during a shift, and since then the garden bar had really only been used to fill drink orders from wait staff, the customers who came in for just a drink or two staying mainly at the lounge bar. That seriously cut down on Alex’s tips. 

“It’s about time,” he said. 

Leven looked up at him. “Go make yourself productive, Ludwig. I’m sure there is some glassware that needs to be cleaned.” 

He sighed heavily, standing up and weaving his way through the restaurant, grabbing a breadstick from the kitchen as he went.

Lux was a giant restaurant, situated right in the middle of West Hollywood, and they did around four hundred covers on one weekend night. Alex had been there for about three years, had started there when he was twenty-three, the week after he had moved to Los Angeles with just a couple of suitcases and the address of an apartment he had found on Craigslist. He was supposed to meet with his potential roommate the same afternoon that he got off the plane, which was good because he barely had two nickels to rub together to make a third and certainly couldn’t afford a hotel room, not even for one night.

He had liked Jack immediately, was glad that he asked him to move in right away, partly because he had nowhere else to go and partly because he knew they were going to be friends for a long time. Jack had introduced him to Dayo that first night, inviting a bunch of people over to welcome Alex to Los Angeles, and the three of them had been inseparable ever since. 

The garden was damn near empty, one of the waitresses hovering around the tables, picking up glasses and holding them up to the dim light coming from the streetlamps scattered around the courtyard, making sure there weren’t any fingerprints or smudges streaked across the glass. “Hey Luca,” he said as he passed her, shoving the last of the breadstick in his mouth. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” she replied. “You out here tonight?”

He rolled his eyes, hopping over the bar. “Sure am.”

“Leven will kick your ass if she sees you doing that,” Luca said, picking up another glass and examining it. 

Alex leaned his elbows on the counter, resting his chin in his hands. “At least you’re out here.”

She rolled her eyes back at him. “Don’t get too excited, Alex. Your girlfriend wouldn’t be too happy if she heard you say that.”

He didn’t bother to correct her. People at Lux were so used to him and Tristan breaking up for a couple of hours or days or sometimes even minutes that there was no use in making it a thing anymore. As far as he knew, they would be back together tomorrow. Why air out their dirty laundry to their coworkers yet again?

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, turning around and looking around to see what he needed to do in the thirty minutes before they opened. “I know.”

Alex’s barback appeared from the kitchen, pushing through the double doors with a tub of ice and dumping it in the bin. “Thanks, Josh,” he said, moving aside the bottles of Patron on the shelf behind him to dust, barely avoiding dropping one on the floor. What with the back bar being so slow, there wasn’t that much to do. Everything was stocked, wiped clean, organized, all ready for the evening rush.

He loved working with his best friends. He loved being a bartender. He loved Lux with its glittering chandeliers and giant potted plants and candles that cluttered every surface. This was what he wanted someday; this was why he put in the hours and hadn’t had a weekend off in years and put up with crazy sleep schedules and drunk customers and a sore back. The only problem was that he didn’t have a couple million dollars in capital to start his own place. 

Someday.

Alex poured himself a vodka soda, gulping it down and hoping that it would cure his still raging hangover. Getting to drink at work was just another perk of the job. He had to take it easy tonight though; he wouldn’t make it through an entire shift if he felt like had to throw up the entire time. 

He put his empty glass in the dish tub, glancing at his watch. It was ten to six, which was certainly enough time for him to get stuck in his own head. He pushed himself up onto the counter behind the bar, his back brushing the shelves lined with alcohol bottles, and he idly watched Luca move around the garden. 

He really did love Tristan, even though she was a complete pain in the ass. He could still remember meeting her his first week in Los Angeles. Her father owned Lux and three other restaurants besides; she was restaurant royalty, clearly not needing the money or connections. She already had all that. And yet she still worked there, was sitting at one of the big tables in the main dining room rolling silverware when he walked into Lux with Jack to beg for a job. She looked up at them as they walked by, heading towards the back dining room, immediately looking back down at what she was doing.

“Holy shit,” Alex hissed to Jack after they had passed her. “Who was that?”

“That was Tristan,” Jack said, almost resignedly. “Don’t even bother, dude. She’s the boss’s kid. She doesn’t give us the time of day.”

Alex was convinced to prove him otherwise. He had gotten the job, of course; he had been bartending for a couple of years, ever since he turned twenty-one, and he was damn good at it. He spent a couple of weeks shadowing Jack and Dayo and Mark before he was on his own. During those shifts, he eyed Tristan the entire time, watching her as she moved through the many dining rooms, coming up to the bar and asking for drinks, always smiling at him but never giving him anything more than that. 

He was put at the back bar his first night on his own, the volume lesser and the pace slower. He was still getting his feet under him; he had worked at a high-volume pub back in Boston, but they had served mainly pints of beer and a whole lot of shots, the majority of their patrons college kids with fake IDs and crumpled dollar bills. Here there were a lot of fancy cocktails with laundry lists of ingredients, the diners armed with Black Cards and hundreds. 

He was in the weeds, trying to remember what the hell was in the Luxtini and drowning in drink tickets when Tristan came rushing up to the bar. She looked stressed, which was a first for her. He had been watching her for a few weeks, and it seemed like no matter what was going on in the dining room, she was cool as a cucumber. He assumed because of who she was that she had grown up in restaurants, had seen everything. But now she looked like she was about to cry, her cheeks red and her hair slipping out of its tight French braid.

“Hey,” he said calmly, trying to hide the fact that he was already stressed and beyond nervous to have a conversation with her. He kept making drinks, his hands moving over the ice bin and bottles in the well and bowl of limes, shoving a wedge into a couple of vodka sodas and putting them on the bar for Jackie to pick up, slapping the drink ticket down next to them. “What’s up?”

“I need mojitos,” she said, her words rushed. “Eight of them.” Alex’s heart dropped; mojitos were the worst drink to make, even on a slow night. They were every bartender’s nightmare. He quickly sifted through the growing mound of drink tickets.

“Shit,” he said, flipping through them. “I didn’t see it, I’m sorry-”

“No,” she cut him off. “I haven’t rung it in yet. I’m just really swamped and these people are assholes and I’m so in the weeds.” She stopped, taking a shaky breath. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Alex stopped moving, leaning over the counter and touching her arm as lightly as he could, not sure if she would pull away or not. She looked up at him, tears threatening to streak down her cheeks. “I’ve got you. It’s gonna be fine.”

It was fine, just like he told her it would be. Tristan was still stressed out of her mind, rushing back and forth past him so quickly that he could barely keep up, but they got through it. He didn’t see her at the end of the night, looked for her after the bar was wiped clean and all the glassware was put away, but she was nowhere to be found. 

The next night was a Monday, typically slower than any other day of the week, so Alex got to try his hand at the main bar in the lounge. He got there early, waiting nervously for Jack to arrive, busying himself by cutting limes, the knife slicing through them easily and leaving puddles of juice behind. He jumped when someone spoke up behind him.

“Hey,” Tristan said, and he whipped around. She was standing at the other end of the bar, about ten feet down from him, her gold and black Lux dress dipping low in the front. He cleared his throat, wiped his hands on a towel, and moved down the bar, stopping in front of her and resting his forearms on it, leaning forward.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low. “How are you doing?”

“Good.” She sighed deeply. Her hair was loose and down around her shoulders, falling in dark waves. He hadn’t seen it like that before; normally it was up. He quelled the urge to reach out and touch it. “I really owe you one.”

“No,” Alex said quickly. “You don’t. I was happy to help.”

Tristan moved, flipping her hand over on the bar so that her palm was facing up and sliding it underneath his. He tried to stop his hand from shaking, but he was unsuccessful. “I was thinking,” she said softly. “Maybe I can buy you a drink. You know. Somewhere that’s not… here.”

Jack had told Alex all about Tristan, or so he thought. The Tristan he heard about from Jack was kind of a bitch to be honest. She was the head waitress at Lux, and as such thought that she could boss everyone around, which she did every single night. It drove Jack crazy. He told Alex to steer clear, that nothing good could come out of that girl even if she did deign to give him the time of day.

That wasn’t the Tristan standing in front of Alex right now, and it certainly wasn’t the Tristan who had needed his help the other night. 

“Okay,” Alex said, his voice getting caught around the words. He cleared his throat, wishing that he had a giant glass of whiskey in front of him right now. “When?”

“I was thinking tonight,” she said, clearly having thought about this already. “Once we get done.”

“Okay.” He cleared his throat again. “Yeah, I’m down.”

She tipped her head to the side, smiling at him before looking over his shoulder. Jack was there; Alex had no idea when he had walked up but he was cleaning out a highball glass with a towel. He raised his eyebrows at Alex, who did his best to ignore him, turning back to Tristan. “I’ll come find you after I close out,” she said. She squeezed his head, walking away in what could only be described as a saunter, disappearing into the kitchen.

Alex didn’t turn around, watching her leave until Jack cleared his throat. “What,” he said, “in the hell was that about?”

Alex sighed, turning around and grabbing the glass from Jack, putting it back on the shelf behind the bar and handing him another one. “That was Tristan.”

“No, duh,” Jack said. “But she was having an actual conversation with you in which she did not bite off your head or order you to do some of her side work.”

“She’s not like that,” Alex said, shaking his head. “She’s nice.

He would come to realize that Tristan was, indeed, like that, and that she could be the nicest girl in the world and then flip on you the next minute. But there in that moment, he had no idea what he could be getting himself into.

Tristan was working in the throne room that night, one of the giant back dining rooms that held big parties. She was running back and forth from the table to the kitchen to the bar, and Alex didn’t get a chance to talk to her at all. He was content just to watch her, ducking his head every time she looked over that she wouldn’t catch him being a complete and total creep. “Jesus,” Jack said eventually, pushing a couple of overflowing beers across the bar and slapping the drink ticket down next to them. “She’s just a girl. It’s like you’ve never seen one before.”

Alex glared at him, dropping a handful of strawberries into his blender and dumping some crushed ice on top of them. “Sorry,” he said, turning the blender on so that the buzzing filled their ears and drowned out their words. “I can’t hear you!” Jack just rolled his eyes.

Jack called Tristan, Jackie, and Jen the Coven, even though Jackie was his girlfriend. “I don’t know, man,” he had said to Alex one of the first nights they were working together. Alex had met Jackie already, and she had been really nice to him, seemed sweet and outgoing and more down to earth than some of the other girls who worked there. “She’s the best, but when she gets around Tristan…” Jack shook his head. “It’s like she’s a different person.”

Alex ignored Jack’s comments, deciding that he should probably make up his mind for himself. He was sitting at one of the big tables in the garden counting his tips so that he could clock out when Tristan came and sat down across from him, putting her book down on the table. “Hey,” she said, pulling out a wad of money and spreading it across the table, starting to separate it into ones and fives and twenties and fifties. “How was your night?”

“Could have been worse,” he said. He figured he had made about three hundred dollars tonight, which when combined with what he had pulled in over the weekend would leave him just enough to buy Tristan a drink tonight. “I really like it here so far,” he said lamely.

She leaned forward, resting her chin on her arm, ignoring the cash spread out in front of her and catching Alex’s hand. The light from the candles in front of them flickered, reflected in her eyes, which were even bluer than Alex’s. He was such a sucker for girls with dark hair and light eyes. “It’s great, right?” she said earnestly. “I could spend the rest of my life here, I think.”

Once they were finished counting their tips so they could declare them, they clocked out, slipping out the back door. It was about one o’clock in the morning, which felt early when you were on a bartender’s sleep schedule. They walked down the street, the summer air heavy around them, only going a couple of blocks before turning towards Empire, which even Alex knew was one of the fanciest, most expensive bars in West Hollywood, the bar in the lobby of the Empire Hotel. He followed Tristan’s lead, his hand just brushing the small of her back as he followed her inside. 

In his head, he was frantically trying to calculate how many days he would have to go without eating to be able to buy her a drink, but before he could even pull out his wallet, she had slid her Black Card across the counter. “I got it,” she said, seeing the look on his face. “Don’t worry about it.”

If there was one good thing he could say about Tristan, it was that she was unfailingly generous. She had more money than she knew what to do with; her father paid their rent, for fuck’s sake, which was the only reason that they were able to live in the building that they were in, which was way out of Alex’s league. Even Jack was only there because of his parents, the one thing he would agree to take from them. Tristan paid for everything: their rent, utility bills, drinks, plane tickets, hotel rooms, Ubers, and the big extravagant gifts that Alex sometimes referred to as blood money, but only when she wasn’t listening.

“Thanks,” he said, pushing his wallet back into his pocket and telling himself that he would get the next one. Eating Ramen for a week would be worth it. 

They sat down at a small round table in the corner, a single candle burning on top of it. Alex put his drink down, pulling out Tristan’s chair for her. She smiled at him as she sat down, scooting her chair around the table so that she was a little bit closer to him. “So,” she said, taking a sip of her drink which was something pink and fizzy. “What’s your story?”

He told her pretty much everything about himself, that he had moved from Boston to start modeling, that he loved bartending and he couldn’t see himself doing anything else while he decided what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He told her about his family, that he had three younger siblings scattered across the country and that his parents had gotten divorced when he was a senior in high school. He told her that he thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, that he was incredibly glad he had found that Craigslist ad and met Jack and walked into Lux to get a job. 

After what felt like a very long time, he fell quiet, realizing that he had just talked a whole lot and figuring that she very well might have changed her mind, but she leaned forward, nudging her empty glass out of the way with her forearm so that she could loop her fingers through his. “I’m glad you came in too,” she said.

Alex was in trouble, and he knew it.

The night ended with the two of them in the hallway by the elevators, Alex’s lips on Tristan’s neck and his hands sliding under the bottom of her dress. It was three in the morning; the hotel was dead, the city silent around them as he pushed her up against the wall, the lights above them seeming too bright. 

“Alex,” she breathed in his ear, her head tilted back, hair so long it brushed his hand where it was splayed across the small of her back. He hummed against her neck, tasting the sweetness of her skin under his mouth. “You wanna go upstairs?”

“Upstairs like…” Alex was trying to focus on her words, far too distracted to be coherent. He was thankful that he had only had one drink, wanted to be as sober as possible for this. “To a room?”

“Yeah,” she said. “My father owns one of the suites. We can use it if you want.”

He almost laughed, like there was any chance in the world he didn’t want to do this. “Yeah,” he said, trying to stop his voice from wavering. “Yes. I want.” Tristan bit her lip, sending a shockwave down his spine as she took his hand, pulling him into the elevator and unbuttoning his shirt as the doors slid shut behind them.

Alex sure wasn’t going to the Empire tonight.

When he went to the Empire, he thought of that Tristan, the one he had met two years ago who was funny and made him laugh and was a force of nature. She was still a force of nature, but that energy was usually directed against him, telling him that he needed to get a haircut or work more hours at Lux or do something with his life. He couldn’t handle that Tristan.

He managed to keep it hidden from everyone at Lux that night that Tristan had broken up with him again, made much easier by the fact that all of the girls were on their getaway weekend. He minded his own business at the garden bar, making drinks and trying to get Luca to pay attention to him. She wouldn’t, and he knew it was because she, like everyone else, was scared of Tristan. 

Jack and Dayo were still hard at work by the time Alex was cut and finished his side work, the lounge bar packed even though the garden was completely cleaned up, lights turned off and chairs flipped up onto the tables. He waited at the end of the lounge bar, trying to stay out of everyone’s way and looking around to make sure Leven wasn’t lurking somewhere to catch him and force him to do something else.

“Dude,” Jack said as he whizzed by him, shaker in one hand and bottle in the other. “Are you already done?”

Alex glanced at his phone, groaning silently. It was only eleven o’clock. He was missing out on hundreds of dollars. “Yeah.” He looked around. The lounge was still buzzing, people everywhere and every single table full. “This blows.”

“Go get a drink and we’ll meet you there,” Dayo said, lining up a row of shots. “I’ll be right with you,” he said to a couple of girls who had squeezed their way through the crowd. “Dude, go,” he said. “I’ll text you when we get cut.”

So that was how Alex found himself leaving Lux alone on a Friday night and heading down the street by himself. He paused by the door to the Empire, his mind flashing back to the night he met Tristan. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He kept moving down the street, ended up belly-up to the bar at Nautica with a beer in front of him. 

Alex loved Tristan. He was sure that he did; you couldn’t be with someone for that long and not love them. The problem was that he didn’t think he was in love with her. You couldn’t be in love with someone who always tried to pick fights and tell you that you had to change. And if she was really in love with him, then maybe she wouldn’t try to make him be someone that he was not all the time. He took a sip of beer, stacking one fist on the top of the other on the bartop and resting his head on them.

“It’s a little bit early for that, don’t you think?” said someone next to him, and he jerked his head up, practically knocking his beer over in the process.

“I… uh…” He slid the beer away from him carefully, the napkin catching on the spilled alcohol. “You know. Long night.”

Nautica was full of neon signs, hanging on the dark walls for that authentic dive bar look. Tristan wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this; it was a quintessential college bar, the kind that Alex missed more than he realized he would after he left Boston. They had two dollar pints on Tuesday and four dollar rails on the weekends, and sometimes he came here by himself just to get away. 

But he had never seen this girl before.

She looked a lot like Tristan, or maybe Tristan looked a lot like her, long dark hair and light eyes, but that was where the similarities stopped. She was small, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, a Blue Moon in front of her, whereas Tristan was tall and wouldn’t be caught dead drinking beer and had probably never worn a t-shirt in her life. He swallowed, realizing he was staring at her. 

“I feel you,” she said. Her voice was lower, raspier, and he had to lean close to hear her. “I just moved here and it’s… a lot.”

There was something he could hold onto. “Where did you move from?”

“New York,” she said. “I just graduated college, and I wanted something different, you know?”

Oh boy, did he. It was like hearing his life story repeated back to him. She talked for a while about college, and he asked her all the right questions about Columbia and her favorite places in New York and what she was doing in Los Angeles. “Ultimately, I guess I want to be a screenwriter,” she said, shrugging and tracing a finger around the edge of her now empty glass. Alex gestured towards the bartender for another round. “But I’m just kind of figuring things out right now.”

The bar was getting crowded, the late night crowd starting to show up, pushing up to the bar and jostling Alex closer to the girl. He still hadn’t gotten her name, was leaning closer to ask her when someone hit the back of his stool. “You wanna get out of here?” he asked. “Take a walk or something?”

She pulled a twenty out of her pocket, slapping it down on the counter. He fumbled for his wallet but she put her hand over his. “I got it,” she said. “Lead the way.”

She followed him out of the bar, and he felt her grab onto his arm to make it through the rush of people trying to get in the door. He quickly fired off a text to Dayo and Jack, telling them that he would just meet them at Jack’s later. He wasn’t sure yet where this night was going to take him. He hadn’t been this viscerally attracted to someone in a long time, not even Tristan, and when she was talking he had to stop himself from reaching out to put his hand on her leg or her arm, wanting to see if her skin was as soft as it looked. 

Even so, he was surprised when she turned to him, putting her hand on his arm to stop him in the middle of the sidewalk. “Listen,” she said, people moving around them and cars pulling up to the curb to drop people off. “This is… not like me at all.” She took a deep breath. “But do you want to come back to my place?”

Alex didn’t even have to think about it, already nodding before she even finished the question. As they walked the few blocks to her apartment building, in the opposite direction from Lux’s that his was, he slid his hand down her arm, lacing his fingers through hers, feeling his heart beating against her palm. 

Her apartment was tiny and full of boxes, some of which she kicked aside after turning the key in the lock and pushing the door open. “Sorry,” she said, picking her way through the maze to her open bedroom door. “We’re a work in progress here.”

He followed her into her room, the only thing in the room her bed, neatly made, her laptop balancing on one edge. He felt like he was shaking, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep her from noticing. He was just about to ask her name when she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at him through her eyelashes, eyes bright green in the light coming through the window.

Alex’s question died in his throat as he unbuttoned his Lux shirt, letting it fall to the floor and moving towards her. She reached up once he stepped within arm’s length, tracing her hands up his back and pulling him down towards her. A shiver went up his spine, goosebumps popping up on the skin she touched.

And finally she kissed him; he felt like he had been waiting for it all night, like she kept getting close and then pulling back, and it was everything he thought it would be, every thought of Tristan wiped from his brain. She was warm underneath him as he pushed her onto her back, balancing himself above her as she ran her fingers down his spine, across his shoulder blades, up his sides, and he moved against her, eliciting a soft little sound from her that disappeared from her mouth into his.

His last thought before she unzipped his pants, pushing them down and pulling him against her was that it was far too late to ask her what her name was now.


	2. cause you're something like the summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / cause you're the next drew barry and i want more  
> / and all these other girls keep wondering what i fuck with you for  
> / cause you're something like the summer, kinda like a hurricane  
> / sweeping through the desert, hot americana rain falling  
> / wearing nothing but my lauryn hill shirt  
> / its kinda baggy on you baby but it works  
> / the ac hasn't worked in ages, i could probably read the label  
> / way too busy fucking on the counter or the coffee table  
> / am i hallucinating, why do you look hella famous  
> drew barrymore by bryce vine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dramatic alex is dramatic.

If there was one thing Alex was never late for, it was Lux’s weekly meeting, held every Monday at nine o’clock in the morning. It was an ungodly time for a bartender who worked until two o’clock the night before, but even so he made sure to be there at least fifteen minutes ahead of time. It wasn’t so much that he was so dedicated to the job (which he was), but more because of the fact that Tristan would hold it against him if he wasn’t there on time. Sometimes that woman scared him to death.

Even though they were broken up now, he was still calculating his movements based on Tristan, getting to Lux a couple of minutes early so that he could be sure to park himself in the back corner and draw as little attention to himself as possible. He picked the back booth, keeping his head down and pulling out his phone, trying to ignore everyone as they filtered into the main dining room. He was sure that by now Tristan had told enough people that they had broken up that everyone would know. That was how Lux worked.

He kept checking his phone, hoping that the girl he had hooked up with on Friday night would somehow get ahold of him. It had been one of the best nights of his life, hands down, and he couldn’t get her out of his head, but she had been pretty adamant about the fact that she wasn’t going to see him again. “It’s more fun this way, right?” she breathed into his ear when he finally asked her for her name. “Big city and all that.”

Alex shifted, felt her tighten around him, and he bit down on the soft skin on her neck. “Yeah,” he grunted out. “Absolutely.” He would have agreed to anything in that moment.

Now he was regretting it, wishing he knew her phone number or her name, desperate to see her again. He had resigned himself to the fact that that wouldn’t happen, that it would be a night he could hold in his memory and nothing more.

A couple of minutes went by, Jack and Dayo and Mark sliding into the booth with him. “She’s here,” Jack muttered to him. “The whole Coven just got here.” Alex kept his eyes trained on his phone screen, refusing to look up until he was sure that they were past him.

It didn’t work.

“Can I talk to you?” Tristan said, standing at the end of their table. He looked up, finally meeting her eye. She looked good, tan and glowing from their weekend in Palm Springs.

“Right now?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Right now.”

Alex tried not to sigh, waiting for Jack to get out of the booth so he could slide down, standing up and following her into the back hallway by the kitchen. She leaned up against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest and waiting for him. He shoved his phone into his pocket, hitching up his jeans. “What’s up?”

“I want to get back together,” she said firmly. Tristan was never one to bury the lead. She didn’t give him a chance to say anything, just barrelled right along. “I think we broke up for a dumb reason, and I don’t want to throw away the last two years.”

It was the same thing Tristan always said when they broke up. Normally Alex went along with it, knew that his life was better with her in it even with everything that came as part and parcel of being her boyfriend, but this time was different. He didn’t know if it was because he was remembering that girl, thinking about the fact that she had actually listened to him talk, had asked him questions about his life, had been the best sex he had had in a long time. Maybe it was because he was finally just sick of the back and forth, wanted something consistent, wanted to actually feel like he was in love again. Whatever it was, he hesitated, trying to not look at Tristan, didn’t want to lose his nerve.

“Alex,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

That was a new one. Tristan normally didn’t apologize, liked to just push things under the rug and move on like they weren’t forced to navigate their way around giant lumps in the carpet. “I…” Alex shook his head. “What?”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I got mad for a dumb reason. I want you to come home.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his forehead. His life was so inextricably entwined with Tristan’s, had been since pretty much the moment he had met her. She wasn’t the reason he had gotten this job, sure, but he was pretty positive that she could get him fired in a heartbeat if she wanted to. It was one of the fears that he didn’t dare speak out loud, not even to Jack or Dayo.

Alex knew that wasn’t a good reason to stay in a relationship. Obviously. He really did love Tristan. When she wasn’t being completely over the top, he thought that she was the love of his life. But those moments had come few and far between lately. And sometimes he wondered when he was laying in bed next to her at night whether he actually loved her or whether he had just convinced himself that he did. Whatever the answer, he knew for a fact that whatever it was he had felt for that girl on Friday night was a far cry from anything he had felt for Tristan in a long time.

Leven came rushing in the back door, pushing her way in between them. “Five minutes!” she called over her shoulder. Tristan’s father wasn’t far behind her, stopped in between them to shake Alex’s hand. Once he was gone, he looked back at Tristan, who looked nervous, biting her lip. Being so close to her in the tiny hallway reminded him of that night at the Empire, reminded him of the Tristan he had been so in love with, had wanted to be with every moment.

He took a deep breath, making up his mind. They could get back to that. He had felt it once; he could feel it again. He would just try a little harder. They could be a dream team again.

“Yeah,” he said, letting out a huff of air. “I’m sorry too.” He visibly saw Tristan relax. “And I want to come home.”

“Good.” She stepped across the hallway, sliding her arms around her waist and resting her head on his shoulder. She had always been the perfect height for him, coming right up to his chin. “I can’t sleep without you there.”

He reached up, stroking a hand through her hair. “I don’t want to fight anymore,” he said. “I’m tired of it.” Alex felt her tighten up under his hands, knew that she wanted to say something, hoped that she wasn’t about to argue with him about it, but Leven stuck her head around the corner.

“Time’s up,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Alex walked back into the dining room, Tristan’s hand in his own, and he picked his way through the mess of people sitting in front of Leven, who was perched on a table next to Tristan’s father. He sat back down in the booth, pulling Tristan in between him and Jack, waiting for Leven to get started.

The Monday meetings were usually kind of a free for all, usually a chance for people to air out any grievances they might have or bring up any concerns. Up until about three months ago, they used to pool their tips, everyone getting the same amount at the end of the night until Jack finally snapped at one of the Monday meetings, saying that he wanted to keep what he made and that he was tired of carrying some of the weaker servers on his shoulders. The issue had come up many times over the years, but this time he was firmly backed by Tristan, who had a vendetta against one of the newer girls at the time, and they had finally gotten Leven to agree to end the practice.

Even when there was nothing on the agenda, there was usually always something new to talk about: an upcoming event or a menu change or a new drink that Tristan’s father wanted to add to the menu. Alex usually reaped the benefits of the last one, learning the recipe from the restaurateur himself and then teaching it to the Lux bartenders, as well as all of the bartenders at the other de Vries restaurants.

Alex really hoped that Leven was going to address the fact that they were down a bartender; if he had to do one more weekend night at the garden bar, he was going to stick a fork in his eye. Sure enough, it was the first thing she brought up; she was likely tired of Alex harassing her about it every second he was at Lux.

“As you all know,” Leven started. “We have been a little short handed when it comes to bar staff. We are going to start training Josh as a bartender, but we needed someone who was able to start immediately.” Tristan slipped her hand around Alex, brushing over his lap as she hooked her chin on his shoulder, and he grabbed her wrist, trying to stop her from feeling him up in front of everyone. He was so distracted that he barely heard Leven say that the new girl’s name was Isabelle and that tonight would be her first night.

“Alex,” Leven said, snapping him back to attention. “She’s going to shadow you tonight.”

Everyone turned to look at him, and he pushed Tristan’s hand away. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he stammered out. “No problem.” It was only then that he realized that the new bartender - Isabelle - was none other than the girl he had met at Nautica on Friday night, the girl he had slept with, the girl that he hadn’t been able to get out of his head. She was turned around in her chair, staring at him, mouth slightly open, looking just as shocked as he felt.

Holy shit.

Alex didn’t remember the rest of the meeting, had no idea if Tristan’s father said anything, wouldn’t have been able to tell you his own name if you’d asked. Once it was over, Leven telling them all that they could go and she would see some of them tonight, he jumped up, pushing Tristan out the back door as fast as he could. He didn’t look back to see if the girl - Isabelle, he had to remember to call her Isabelle - was watching.

“What is your problem?” Tristan asked, giving him a weird look. He knew that he was being twitchy and nervous and that he needed to reign it in before she figured out what the hell was going on. If anyone could sniff out the truth of the situation, it was her.

“Just tired,” he said. “Sleeping on Jack’s couch isn’t all that comfortable.” Except you weren’t on Jack’s couch every night, said the little voice in his head. You were in Isabelle’s bed. Thank God Jackie had been out of town, or he was sure she would rat on him. Her devotion to Tristan always took precedence over her friendship with Alex.

“Well, come on,” Tristan said, taking his hand and pulling him into the sunlight. “Let’s go home.”

He really was tired, falling into their giant bed once they got back to the apartment, not even bothering to move the twenty-five pillows that Tristan insisted they needed. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen, cupboards opening and shutting and the clink of dishes being put away. He knew he should get up and help, but he actually was exhausted.

After a while she came in, climbing into bed next to him and sliding her hand up the back of his shirt and around to the front, over the planes of his stomach and down. He tried to make his breathing as even as he could, keeping his eyes shut. There was no way that he could in good conscience sleep with Tristan right now.

Once she left, disappearing into the bathroom to get ready for their shift tonight, Alex rolled over, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling. Isabelle - he kept turning her name over and over in his head. He needed to figure out what he was going to do about this giant mess of a situation that he had created. Maybe he would try to talk to her about it tonight; hopefully Tristan would have one of the sections in the front of the restaurant so that there would be no conceivable reason for her to venture back to the garden bar.

He had debated telling Jack and Dayo what had happened, even before finding out that Isabelle was Lux’s new bartender, but now he was glad that hadn’t. The fewer people who knew, the better.

Alex knew that he was being uncharacteristically quiet while they walked to Lux, but it didn’t matter because Tristan was telling him all about their trip to Palm Springs. He nodded absentmindedly, making noises at all the right places, but with every step that they took, his heart sank a little lower until it felt like he was going to throw up. It wasn’t that he was upset - he certainly wasn’t; he had been thinking about Isabelle since the second he had left her apartment that morning. But he felt sick about the fact that he had just agreed to get back together with Tristan.

If he had seen Isabelle five minutes sooner, he couldn’t guarantee that he would have made the same decision.

Maybe that made him a shitty person, but this was the hole he had dug for himself.

They got to Lux, heading to the main dining room where Leven was hunched over the floor map for tonight. Alex knew he was going to be at the garden bar since he was training, but he wanted to see where Tristan’s section was. Thankfully, it was in the main dining room, closest to the lounge bar. She was one of the strongest servers, having worked in restaurants her entire life, and as the head server, she had the most seniority when it came to doling out the sections. He used to love this, knew she would always be near the lounge bar because that was the busiest section, and he would get to be close to her when he worked.

Now it just seemed like another bar on the front of his prison cell. But tonight he was glad she was going to be so far away from him. There was no way he could be around Isabelle without Tristan figuring out that he hadn’t just met her tonight.

Tristan had already disappeared into the kitchen. She was obsessed with Lux’s stuffed mushroom caps, usually got a plate of them before each shift started and split it with the rest of the Coven. Alex hadn’t seen them, but he would bet all of his tips for tonight that Jackie and Jen were already waiting for her in the kitchen. “Listen,” Leven said before he could run back to the garden. “I’m sorry to put you back there again, but you know you’re the best trainer and I just need tonight to go smoothly.”

“No, it’s fine,” Alex said quickly. Too quickly, he then realized. “I mean… I would rather be at the front,” he stammered. “But at least we have someone new, right? Like a new bartender, I mean.”

Leven narrowed his eyes at him, and he knew that he was being weird. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Well… Isabelle is already back there, so you should probably go.”

He backed away, trying not to look too eager, but he picked up the pace after he had disappeared behind a giant potted plant, taking the shortcut through the VIP room to get to the garden. He paused, taking in the courtyard with the glittering lights hanging down and the giant chandelier suspended above everything. Isabelle was behind the bar, her back to him, looking at the alcohol bottles set up behind the bar.

Just do it, he told himself. Just go over there. He took a deep breath, felt a deep flush run up his neck just at the thought that he already knew her pretty well, even if he had just learned her name this morning. One more deep breath, and he was ready to go.

“Hey,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and setting it on the bar before hopping over. Leven hated it when he did that, but sometimes he just couldn’t be fussed to go around to the corner to the door that would let him behind the bar. She whipped around, and he could see her visibly swallow. He hit the ground, shoving his phone back in his pocket and holding his hand out to her. “Alex.”

She gave him a small smile, her cheeks flushed pink. She hesitated for a second, but then she shook his hand, her skin warm against his. “Isabelle.”

“Big city, huh?” he said, parroting her own words back to her.

She snorted, shoved her hands in her pockets. “I swear, I didn’t know…”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I wish that I had, but it was just as surprising to me too.” He didn’t want to unpack that right now, didn’t want to tell her that he wish he had known because his relationship status might be very different right now.

“That girl you were with…” Isabelle trailed off.

“My girlfriend.” There was a very heavy pause. “Not when we - not the other night,” Alex said quickly, tripping over his words. “It’s been really on and off, and we just got back together. This morning actually.”

“Okay,” Isabelle said. Alex realized that he hated this. The night he had met her, they had had a great conversation; he had told her more about himself than it felt like he had told Tristan in the last year of their relationship. But now everything was stilted and awkward, dancing around the elephant sitting square in the middle of the room.

“She doesn’t know,” Alex said, reaching into the mini fridge underneath the bar and grabbing a bowl of limes, setting them on the back bar. “I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” Isabelle said, watching him closely. “I understand.”

They needed to talk about it more, he knew, but they had a hell of lot to do before they opened. There were a few more minutes of awkward silence, but they fell into a rhythm pretty quickly. He showed her the signature cocktails, testing her on ingredients and prices and which glass to use. He had her make him a mojito and an Old Fashioned and a margarita, running them out to the Coven because he couldn’t get through tonight with even a drop of alcohol in his system. He introduced her to Josh, showed her where they kept the fruit and the cutting board and the blender, ran through the list of what they had to do to close the bar. Alex had been a bartender for a while, and he could tell immediately that she was going to be good at this job.

About a half an hour before they were set to open, Jack and Dayo wandered back from the lounge bar, introducing themselves to Isabelle. “How is he?” Jack asked, leaning over the bar and grabbing a cherry, popping it in his mouth. “If he’s being an asshole, you can tell us.”

Alex rolled his eyes, slapping Jack’s hand away from the bowl. “Cut that out,” he snapped.

“See?” Jack raised his eyebrows at Isabelle. “Asshole.”

She laughed, taking a cherry for herself. “No, he’s been great.” She turned to Alex. “I’m just trying to get the hang of it.”

“You’re doing fine,” he assured her. “It’s a lot, and you’re picking it up real quick.”

“Just wait,” Dayo said. “You’ll be up at the main bar with him on a Saturday night and he’ll be standing on the bar pouring shots into girls’ mouths straight out of the bottle. Then you’ll definitely think he’s an asshole.”

“Gotta get those tips however I can,” Alex said, shrugging. Lux got a little crazy on the weekends, especially on Saturday nights when they were encouraged to make it into as much of a party atmosphere as possible.

Isabelle stuck her tongue out, a cherry stem tied into a knot sitting neatly on top of it. “How did you do that?” Jack said, leaning forward. She handed it to him, and he examined it closely.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve always been able to do it. That’s how I make my tips, I guess.” She winked at Alex.

“Well, you know why,” Dayo said. “It means you’re a good kisser.”

“Okay,” Alex said quickly, hopping off the back bar where he had been perched. He seriously needed to get these two idiots out of here before he inadvertently spilled the beans and peached on himself.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dayo grumbled. “We’re going.” He grabbed a lime off the bar, throwing it at Alex’s head before they disappeared around the corner, heading back to the main dining room. Alex caught it, leaning over Isabelle, who was also sitting on the back bar, to put it back into the box. He realized how close he was to her, practically bracketing her in with his arms. Damn, this bar was smaller than he had realized.

Isabelle grabbed another cherry from the bowl next to her, eating it and pulling out another stem tied in a knot. “What do you think?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. “Is it true?”

Alex’s mouth went dry. “Is what true?”

She looked up at him, just a few inches away from him. “Am I a good kisser?”

His breath caught in his throat. “I… uh…” The answer was an obvious resounding yes, but the word got stuck in his brain, refusing to come out of his mouth. He tried his best to keep his mind from flashing back to that night, but it was suddenly filled with memories of her moving on top of him, tiny whines escaping from her mouth, floating over him as she leaned down to kiss him. He wanted to hear those noises again, wanted to hear her say his name into his ear, wanted-

Isabelle laughed, jerking him out of his thoughts. “I’m just kidding.” She reached down, pushing him backwards and hopping off the counter. “Relax.”

Alex thought his heart might actually stop. “Not funny,” he mumbled, turning around so that she wouldn’t see the redness spreading over his face.

Leven appeared around the corner. “How’s it going so far?” she asked Isabelle. “Is Alex being nice to you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone think I’m mean?”

“Because you are,” Leven said without skipping a beat. “You’re mean to me all the time.”

“Well, that’s well-deserved.” He was still shaken at how close he had come to kissing Isabelle right there at the bar where anyone could have walked in at any moment. He had to get it together. “And she’s doing great.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Leven said. “Well, I’ll be wandering around if you need me. It should be a slower night tonight, so you guys will be first cut.”

She rushed off, barely even finishing her sentence before disappearing. Alex always told her that she was going to give herself an aneurysm if she didn’t calm down, but for as much as he gave her shit she really was the best manager she had ever had. He certainly didn’t deserve the amount of patience that she had for him.

The night went quickly, Alex managing to step back a little and loosen the reins, letting Isabelle take the lead. She did a good job, didn’t get flustered, remembered everything he had told her, was good with the customers. He knew that when she got moved up to the lounge bar that she would rake in the tips from all of the guys she served and probably some of the girls too. All night he kept thinking that they needed to talk, just wanted to be alone with her without constantly looking over his shoulder for one of the Coven to come in.

Tristan came back to the bar once, just after the first wave of people arrived at the restaurant. He knew that she could have easily gone to the lounge bar to get her drinks, knew that she was just checking up on him. She hadn’t said anything to him about Isabelle yet, but he had seen her haze the shit out of new girls before. He could only imagine that that was forthcoming, and he intended to do everything in his power to shield Isabelle from that.

“Hey baby,” she said, leaning over the counter. Isabelle was making a martini, Alex glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as surreptitiously as he could manage. She didn’t look up, kept her eyes trained down on her shaker as she splashed some vermouth into it.

“Hey,” he said, coming closer to the front of the bar. Tristan reached over it, straightening the collar of his shirt before tugging him towards her, kissing him with more tongue than was probably appropriate for the workplace. He leaned into it for a second, pulling back quickly and clearing his throat. “How, uh… how’s it going up there?”

“Slow so far,” she said. “I wish you were working the lounge.”

Alex glanced at Isabelle again, wincing inwardly. “Yeah, well… we’ll be up there soon, I’m sure.”

At that, Tristan finally looked over at Isabelle. “Oh, sorry. I’m being rude,” she said in a tone that seemed nice but that Alex knew was very calculated. “I’m Tristan.”

“Isabelle,” she said, screwing the top onto her shaker. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Tristan didn’t say anything, and Alex cleared his throat again, this time pointedly. “You know,” Tristan said, cocking her head to the side, and Alex wanted to groan. “You should come out with us sometime, me and the girls.”

This was what Tristan always did: she was really nice at first, lulled you into a sense of complacency before she went in for the kill. If she didn’t like you, if you didn’t meet her impossible standards or she felt threatened by you, she would ice you out. Alex waited nervously for Isabelle to respond, all the while thinking that he had really fucking done it this time.

“I would like that,” Isabelle said, her voice even. She grabbed a martini glass off the shelf behind her. “I just moved here and I don’t know anyone yet.” Alex was going to spontaneously combust, just burst into flames on the spot. She poured the liquid from her shaker into the glass, dropping an olive into it and setting it on the counter. “I think this is yours.”

Tristan took it, waiting just a beat too long before answering. “Good. We’ll set something up.” She turned back to Alex. “Come find me when you get cut. I think we should sneak out of here early and go to dinner.”

So much for trying to get Isabelle alone somewhere tonight. “Okay,” he said lamely. “Yeah, I’ll come get you.”

“Well,” Isabelle said as soon as Tristan pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “She’s… something, isn’t she?”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

Isabelle shrugged. “Let the games begin.”


	3. boy oh boy i love you when i fall for that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / one sip, bad for me  
> / one hit, bad for me  
> / one kiss, bad for me  
> / but i give in so easily  
> / and no thank you is how it should've gone  
> / i should stay strong  
> / but i'm weak and what's wrong with that  
> / boy oh boy i love you when i fall for that  
> weak by ajr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> emily pulled me back from the edge of the cliff with this chapter by reminding me that sometimes it's a good thing to have characters that we don't side with.

Normally Alex hated to have a Friday or Saturday night off. He liked being at Lux on the weekends, liked the party atmosphere and the quick pace and the crush of people at the front bar. And the tips didn’t hurt. But tonight he was glad that he wasn’t working. For one, it was the first night off that he had had in about ten days. For another, Tristan was working, and he was hoping to finally get a chance to talk to Isabelle.

She had been at Lux for five days now, and tonight would be her first night back at the garden bar without him. Alex had walked Tristan to Lux, depositing her at a table in the front of the restaurant with Jackie and a plate of stuffed mushroom caps. “Where are you going?” she called after him as he started to back away.

He figured honesty was the best policy, at least in this moment. “Gonna go check on Isabelle,” he said, his heart beating fast. All week he had been on pins and needles, waiting for Tristan to figure out what had happened and confront him on it, but so far it had been pretty smooth sailing. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t, just turned around and leaned closer to Jackie, saying something, her voice too low for him to hear, and he walked away as steadily as he could.

Jack was leaning on the bar, talking to her when Alex walked up. He still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to come clean to his friends about what was really going on, knew he needed to talk to them. They wouldn’t be pissed about what he had done, even though their girlfriends were Tristan’s best friends, but they would be pissed if he hid it from them. For now though, he just needed to talk to Isabelle.

“Hey, man,” Jack said as he walked up. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have tonight off?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, looking at Isabelle. She already had the bar all ready to go, everything wiped down and pristine. Alex thought he was a pretty good bartender, but after working with her all week he realized that she blew him out of the water. “I just came with Tristan. Wanted to check up on Iz.”

“Don’t worry, Ludwig,” she said. “I’m not gonna fuck anything up.”

He held up his hands placatingly. “So you’re saying you don’t need me?”

She snorted. “Definitely not.” He pouted at her, completely forgetting Jack was standing there until he pushed back from the bar.

“Well, you all clearly don’t need me,” he said. “I better get back to the front. Iz, come get me if you need me.”

“You got it,” she said. Once he was gone, she turned back to Alex. “So what’s up? I know you didn’t really come here to check up on me.”

Alex glanced over his shoulder, making sure a member of the Coven wasn’t lurking behind him. “Can you meet me tonight? When you get done?”

She didn’t answer him, poured a couple of shots of Stoli and pushed one across the bar to him. “Bottoms up,” she said, tapping her shot glass against his and then to the counter before tipping it back. He watched her, waited until she was finished before he took his. His eyes followed her as she wiped off her bottom lip. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Where?”

“Nautica,” Alex said quickly. There was no way Tristan would ever think to look for him there. He probably had only a couple of minutes before Mark showed up, Isabelle’s partner for tonight. 

“Right back to the scene of the crime, huh?” she said, smirking at him. She did that a lot, made little comments that shot him right back to that night. He knew she would never to do it in front of Tristan, knew that she did it just because he got nervous and flustered every time. He made it way too easy for her.

“Shut up,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Just text me when you’re closing out and I’ll meet you there.”

Mark came around the corner, slapping Alex on the back and hopping over the bar. “Okay,” she said, her voice low. “See you later.”

He tried to skitter out of the restaurant as fast as he could, stopping by the table that Tristan was at with Jen and Jackie to say good-bye, but they stopped him. “So I was thinking of inviting Isabelle to go out with us tomorrow night,” she said. “Once we get off.” She paused, searching Alex’s face for any sign of weakness, he knew. “What do you think about that?”

He tried to compose his face into some semblance of normal. “That’s fine,” he said. They all had to work tomorrow, were always all scheduled on Saturday nights, but they usually tried to go out afterwards, even if it was just for a couple of hours. He didn’t know if he could be around Tristan and Isabelle at the same time, especially not if he was drinking, but it looked like he was just going to have to suck it up. “Are you guys going to be nice to her?”

“We’re always nice,” Jackie said, looking up at him and poking him in the side.

“You might be, Emerson, but these two…” Alex gestured to Jen and Tristan. “Definitely are not.”

Jen shrugged, stuffing a mushroom cap into her mouth, the last one on the plate, before wiping her hands on a napkin and standing up. “Get out of here, Ludwig,” she said. “I think we can hold down the fort without you.” Alex rolled his eyes at her.

“Okay,” he said, leaning down to Tristan, who presented her cheek to him to kiss. “I’ll see you when you get off.”

“Don’t wait up,” she said. “I’m the last cut tonight.” Thank God.

He walked back to the apartment, taking his time. After getting back together with Tristan, their relationship had been pretty good so far at least, although it had only been a few days. But there hadn’t been any fighting or silent treatment or passive aggressive comments. She still wasn’t acting like the Tristan he had fallen in love with two years ago, but at least they were trying. 

That didn’t mean that he had gotten Isabelle out of his mind. There were days where it felt like he thought about her every second, not helped by the fact that they worked together in close quarters at the garden bar every single night. More than once he found himself looking down at her and wanting to push her up against the wall and kiss her like his girlfriend wasn’t just a few rooms away. She was funny and easy going and sometimes he caught her looking at him in a way that he couldn’t describe. That first night that they worked together, he got home at midnight, stripped off his clothes to take a shower and found a tied up cherry stem in his pants pocket. He had no idea when or how she had gotten in there without him noticing, but he grinned when he saw it, putting it in the top drawer of the dresser underneath a stack of boxers.

Alex did find, however, that the more time he spent around her the easier it got. He started to breathe easier, move around her like he wasn’t dying to reach out and touch her. He could only hope that he would get the last bit of closure he needed tonight at Nautica, assured in the fact that they could be friends without any tension floating in the air between them.

That’s what he thought, at least. When he walked into Nautica around eleven o’clock to see her already sitting at the bar, the neon of the Blue Moon sign on the wall behind her bathing her in blue and yellow light, he felt his heart jump in his chest, like he was seeing her for the first time all over again. He cleared his throat, sitting down next to her and purposely bumping his knee against hers. 

“How’d it go tonight?”

Isabelle turned to look at him, a grin spreading over her face. He tried to shake away the thought that immediately popped into his head, that Tristan never looked that happy to see him. He had to stop comparing the two of them; he was only confusing himself even more. “It was good,” she said. “Busy, but I didn’t screw anything up too badly.”

“I doubt you screwed anything up at all,” he said, rolling his eyes at her. 

She shrugged. “I like it better when you’re there.”

Alex ordered a beer, pushing his credit card across the counter and shaking a pinch of salt out onto the napkin that the bartender set down in front of him. He took a big gulp when it came, already nervous. “So…”

She tipped her head to the side, looking at him. “So. What do you want to talk about?”

“I just…” Alex took a deep breath. “I just wanted to explain myself, I guess. I don’t want you to think I regret what happened that night.” The words escaped from his mouth before he could think about them for too long. 

“Listen,” Isabelle said, swiveling her bar stool towards him. “You don’t have to explain anything. It was my idea.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, very aware of how close his leg was to hers. “I clearly wasn’t saying no.”

“No,” she said, smirking at him. “You weren’t.” Alex reached out, hitting her lightly in the leg. “But it’s fine,” she said quickly. “Things don’t have to be complicated. You have a girlfriend, and I’m just…” She paused, thinking. “I don’t want to make things difficult for you, you know?”

Things were already difficult, not that he was going to tell her that. “My relationship with Tristan is complicated.” Alex felt like he owed her some sort of explanation, although he didn’t even really know how to explain things to himself at this point. “It has always been complicated. But that doesn’t have anything to do with you, and I don’t want to drag you into it.”

“Don’t worry,” she said easily. “I can handle myself.”

“You’re not the one I’m worried about.” He sighed, taking another drink of beer, realizing that he had almost drained the entire glass already.

“Alex,” she said, her voice more serious than he had heard it so far in their friendship. “You’re happy with her, right? I can’t pretend like I know enough about your relationship to be asking that question, but I’m going to ask it anyways.”

He swallowed, contemplating the question. Of course he was happy. You didn’t stay with someone for two years if you were miserable the entire time. But it didn’t mean that sometimes he didn’t feel like he was trapped in his own life. “I… uh… yeah,” he said, stammering out his answer. “I’m happy.”

Isabelle sat back. “Then that’s all that matters, right?”

Right. That was what mattered.

They stayed at the bar for another hour, drinking a couple more beers and talking about anything but Tristan. As he sat there with her, he felt like he was finally starting to relax, like maybe could be around her without every nerve ending in his body reaching out towards her. Everything was going to be just fine.

He was practically asleep when Tristan got home that night, crawling into bed next to him. “Hey,” she said, and he didn’t miss the little edge in her voice, unsure if was because she had a long night or if it was because she was tired or if she was mad at him for some reason he didn’t (or did) know about. “What’d you do tonight?”

He rolled over sleepily, squinting up at her. “Nothing,” he said as easily as he could. “How was your night?”

She turned the lamp off, bunching her pillow up under her head. “Long,” she said. The tightness in her voice was unmistakable. He didn’t know what to say to that, thought maybe it was best that he didn’t say anything. “Oh,” she said finally, like she had just remembered even though Alex knew that couldn’t be the case. “Isabelle agreed to come out with us tomorrow night.”

Alex’s blood ran cold, even though he had known this was coming. “Cool,” he said, trying to keep his tone as disinterested as possible. 

“Yeah.” They sat there in the darkness, Alex now wide awake, waiting for whatever it was that was coming next. Instead, Tristan rolled over, her back to him. “Yeah,” she repeated. “Cool.” 

The next night at work crawled by so slowly Alex could barely stand it, even though it was a Saturday night and the restaurant was packed. He was back up at the lounge bar, and while he was glad that he was finally going to make good money again, it felt like torture to be in the same building as Isabelle and not be able to see her. Having her next to him behind the bar, making jokes when things got a little stressful or putting her hand on his back as she passed behind him made the night go quickly. Instead he was up at the front with Dayo, just trying to stay alive as people crowded the bar and tickets poured in.

“Vodka soda, Manhattan, margarita,” Jackie called to him as she sailed past the bar into the kitchen. 

“Got it,” he yelled after her, pulling glasses down off the shelf behind him and lining them up on the bar. She came back out of the kitchen, taking a breather and standing at the end of the bar, hidden from view by a giant plant. 

“Thank you,” she said, breathless. “It’s a shitshow.”

“I know,” he said, moving as fast as he could. 

“You’re coming out tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, turning the blender on. He waited until it had stopped before he brought up the question that had been on his mind. “You’re gonna make sure Tristan is nice to Isabelle, right?”

Jackie was the most level-headed of the three, the only one who showed any compassion towards the new people. Lux was not an easy environment to walk into, to say the least. He knew that he could at least broach the subject with her without getting his head bitten off. 

“What is with you two?” Jackie said. She didn’t sound suspicious, just curious, but Alex knew that he was walking a fine line.

“She’s cool,” Alex said, trying to be nonchalant. He upended the blender into a margarita glass, sliding it across the counter to her. “That’s it.”

“Well,” Jackie said, taking the glass and regarding him contemplatively. “I like her. But you know I’m not the one in charge.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Just… do what you can.”

Jackie snorted. “I always do.”

They didn’t make it out to Bootsy until around three o’clock in the morning, all of them trickling back to Jack and Jackie’s apartment once they got cut to change. Thankfully, it seemed like the entirety of Lux was going, and Alex was able to leave Isabelle in Jackie’s capable hands, slinging his arm around Tristan’s shoulders as they got into one of the Ubers.

He hadn’t seen her much all night; she had been stationed in the throne room, coming out only to grab drinks from the bar. She still seemed weird, a little distant and stand-offish, not at all like Tristan. But as the night went on, all of them crowding around a table and ordering shots, he felt like she was starting to loosen up. 

Alex had made the executive decision early on in the night not to drink, hoping it would make his night a little bit easier. He sat next to Tristan in the round booth, his hand on her leg, thinking that maybe everything was back to normal. 

* * *

There were mean girls everywhere. They had been at Columbia. They were in Los Angeles. And they certainly existed at Lux. Isabelle had clocked one of them the second she had walked into the restaurant for her interview; she was sitting at a table with a redhead and a blonde, an empty plate in front of them. Isabelle had smiled at them as she walked by; the other two smiled back but not the one who was clearly in charge, just cocked her head at Isabelle and watched her pass. Whatever. She could handle it.

Even so, she was really glad she had Alex. It had been the shock of the century when she turned around that first day during the meeting to see him sitting in a back booth, the tall brunette girl draped across his back like she owned him. The girl was watching her, even though Alex hadn’t seemed to notice her yet. When he did, his mouth dropped open, his face going pale, and Isabelle was sure she looked just as surprised as he did.

They got over it quickly though, and Isabelle realized right away how much she loved working with him. He was fast and good at his job and fun to be around, the hours slipping past them like they were nothing. And he was certainly easy on the eyes. Except for the fact this his girlfriend hated her, Isabelle didn’t have much to complain about. She wanted to be friends with Alex. She wanted to be friends with all of them. She just didn’t know how realist that was when it come to Tristan.

She tried to steer clear of Tristan as much as she could, sticking close to the other bartenders. She had heard rumblings about her and her two best friends, a waitress named Luca filling her in quickly during her first week at Lux. Even Alex had gotten as close to warning her as he could without throwing his girlfriend completely under the bus. So she was certainly surprised when Tristan invited her to go to the club with them after she finished her first week at Lux.

She wasn’t an idiot; she knew Tristan was feeling her out, trying to see where her loyalties lay and where she stood with Alex. So she made up her mind to do everything she could to assure her that she wasn’t a threat, while also enforcing the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t like anything was going on between her and Alex. They were just friends, nothing more. So she accepted, making her way to Jackie’s apartment once she got cut on Saturday night.

Isabelle liked Jackie a lot. She had been nice to Isabelle since her first day there, bringing her food at the end of the night and sitting with her while she counted her tips. “Don’t worry about Tristan,” she told Isabelle the night they went out to Bootsy as they were walking to Jackie’s apartment after their shift was up. “She takes a little while to warm up to you, but once she does she’s a great friend.” Isabelle didn’t doubt that; she just doubted that Tristan would ever actually warm up to her.

She sat at a booth with Luca, Jack, Mark, Jackie, and a few other servers and barbacks who she could not for the life of her remember the names of. It felt like she had met about fifty people in the last five days. Alex and Tristan were at a different booth, which she was thankful for, feeling like she could relax and not constantly be looking over her shoulder the way she had been for the past week. 

“I think we should cheers to Isabelle,” Jackie announced after they had been at Bootsy for about an hour. She raised her glass, the ice cubes clinking. “She survived her first week. And she didn’t panic and drop an entire bottle of Patron into the ice bin, like some of us did.”

“Hey,” Jack said, pouting at her. “We agreed not to bring that up anymore.”

“Did we?” Jackie said innocently. “I don’t recall.”

Isabelle laughed, raising her glass up. “Cheers to you guys,” she said, locking eyes with Jackie. “Thank you for making it so easy for me.”

They all clinked their glasses with hers. She finished it off, tapping Jackie on the leg. “Bathroom,” she said, waiting for Jackie to slide out of the booth so she could get past. “I’ll be right back.”

The bathroom was empty, and she stayed in there for a few minutes after she washed her hands, leaning on the sink. She was having a good time, liked hanging out with Jackie and Jack and Luca. So she didn’t understand why, even through her slight buzz, she was thinking so much about Alex, where he was and what he was doing. She had barely seen him all night, and she was realizing with every second that passed that she actually missed being around him.

She was drunk. It was just a little crush. Nothing to be concerned about.

When she came out of the bathroom, drying her hands on the back of her jeans, she practically ran right into Alex, who was waiting outside the bathroom door like he was barricading it. She blinked up at him, trying to figure out if she was drunker than she realized. But no - he was standing there, looking down at her. 

“Alex,” she hissed, looking behind him at the dark hallway leading back to the main body of the club. “What are you doing?”

He loomed in front of her, big enough to block out everything behind him so that he was the only thing she could see. “I just…” He trailed off. He did that a lot, and it drove her crazy. Sometimes she just wanted to tell him to say what he was thinking, even if he wasn’t sure that he should. 

Isabelle cleared her throat. In the darkness of the hallway, her brain fuzzy from alcohol and Alex standing right in front of her, she was starting to wonder if it was more than just a crush she had on him. She couldn’t deny that she was physically attracted to him; that much became clearer with every second that she was behind the bar with him. She had just gotten used to it. But now she had to shove her hands into her pocket to keep from reaching out and touching him. 

“What, Alex?” He was biting his lip as he looked at her, sending a shiver down her spine.

“I just wanted to… make sure you’re okay.” He took a step closer to her, pushing her against the wall at the end of the hallway. She could only hope that if someone was watching them, they wouldn’t see her. 

“Yeah,” she breathed out, her throat so dry that she could barely speak. “I’m good. Why…” She was doing the same thing he always did, the same thing that drove her crazy. “Why are you asking?”

“Because, Isabelle.” He planted his arm on the wall over her head, leaning down towards her. 

“Because why?” 

“Because.” Alex, who normally stumbled over his words and thought two or three times about everything he was going to say before he said it, was suddenly very sure of himself. “I care about you.”

With his other hand, he reached up, pushing her hair out of her face and looking at her intently. “I care about you too,” she managed to say, her voice unsteady. 

Alex leaned down towards her, just a few inches away, his lips brushing over her cheek as he dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “Good,” he whispered, and for some reason it felt more intimate than anything she had experienced with him so far, even if you counted everything they did the night they met. She closed her eyes, willing him to lean in closer and just kiss her, but suddenly he pulled back, his warmth replaced by cool air, and her eyes popped open. “See you around,” he said, backing away and smirking at her, biting his bottom lip. Just as quickly as he came, he was gone.

Isabelle took a shaky breath, glad the wall was behind her to hold her up. Holy shit. She was in trouble.


	4. moving different while we're making love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / well keep switching your alibi  
> / or stuttering when you reply  
> / you can't even look me in the eye  
> / oh i can tell i know you're lying  
> / cause you've been acting so conspicuous  
> / you flip it on me, say i think too much  
> / you're moving different while we're making love  
> / so baby tell me, tell me  
> / who do you love, do you love now  
> / i wanna know the truth  
> who do you love by the chainsmokers

“Try this.”

“You can’t just ask me to put random stuff in my mouth.”

“I can and I will. Try it.”

Alex inched the margarita glass closer to Isabelle, bumping the edge of her plate. She sighed, just to annoy him, and put her fork down, picking it up and sniffing it. “What is it?”

“Holy shit, Isabelle,” he said, leaning forward on the bar. He had his sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned and untucked, his hair mussed in the front. It had been another crazy Saturday night, the two of them working together at the front bar, and for the first time in a few hours they were able to relax, sit down, eat, and apparently invent new drinks. “Just drink it.”

Isabelle took a sip, tasting freshness and a little bit of heat. She took another sip, looking up at Alex over the rim of the glass. “Well…” She didn’t give her opinion right away, knowing it would make him crazy.

“Come on,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “What do you think?”

She went back for a third sip. “It’s really fucking good, Alex,” she said finally. The boy knew how to make a cocktail, that was for damn sure.

His eyes lit up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“Double shot of mezcal, little bit of cilantro, couple chunks of chilis, and lemon juice.”

“Did you muddle the chilis?”

“No. I didn’t want it to be too spicy. I know how you are with heat.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, examining the glass. “I think just a little bit of honey and it would be perfect.”

Alex grabbed the bottle of mezcal sitting next to him in the well, dumping some ice in a shaker. “Honey. Of course.” He looked up at her, throwing in a handful of cilantro and some pieces of pepper. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

“Shut up,” she said, going back to her burger.

She had been at Lux for about a month and a half now, finally felt like she was getting the hang of things. The work part was easy; she had been bartending since the second she turned twenty-one and Alex had certainly spent enough time with her making sure she knew every ingredient on Lux’s bar menu. The hard part was managing all the personalities that came part and parcel of being a Lux employee.

It seemed like Tristan was warming up to her, although maybe she just wanted Isabelle to think that. Over the last couple of weeks, she had invited Isabelle to eat with her before their shifts started, the two of them sitting at a table with Jackie and Jen and enjoying the calm before the storm. Tristan asked her a lot of pointed questions at first about where she was from and what she was doing here and what she wanted out of life. Isabelle answered them all gamely, as best she could, hoping that Tristan would realize that she wasn’t trying to go after her boyfriend.

Outside of work, Isabelle was spending most of her time with Jackie, a fact that had not gone unnoticed to Tristan, she was sure. On her days off, she usually went over to Jackie’s apartment when she woke up, sitting out on her balcony in the sunshine and trying to talk about anything but work.

Jackie told her all about Tristan and Alex, answering her carefully asked questions with more detail than Isabelle expected. “It feels like they’ve been together forever,” Jackie said one morning after Alex and Tristan had gotten into another fight that ended with Tristan calling Jackie at three in the morning, tipsy and crying. “They fight all the fucking time. I don’t think I could handle that.”

“What do they fight about?” Isabelle asked, picking at a thread on her shorts. As far as she knew, the fact that she and Alex had slept together was still known only to the two of them, but she lived in fear of somebody, namely Tristan, finding out.

“What don’t they fight about?” Jackie said, rolling her eyes and ignoring the fact that her phone was buzzing with texts coming in. “Alex is late to dinner. Alex doesn’t care enough about his future. Alex wore the wrong tie to meet with her father. Alex drinks too much or smokes too much or went out to the bar after work.” She sighed, flipping her phone face down. “It’s like he can’t do anything right.”

Isabelle squinted at the sun, bright in her eyes, and she pulled her sunglasses down off the top of her head. “Do you think he’s doing anything wrong?”

“Listen,” Jackie said. “I love Alex. I’ve known him for years. He’s like a brother to me.” She hesitated. “It’s complicated. Tristan is… my best friend, and I swear she’s a good person, even if she doesn’t always act like it.”

“But?” Spit it out, Jackie.

“She’s wrong,” Jackie said flatly. “About this, she’s wrong. Alex might not be the most motivated or mature person in the world, but he’s a good guy. I just don’t think he knows what he wants yet.”

Isabelle considered this. She had worked really closely with Alex for six weeks now, spending at least forty hours a week with him, usually behind a tiny bar, and she felt like she knew him pretty well. He had told her that first night that he wanted to own his own bar one day, that he loved bartending and he didn’t think he would ever be able to stop, but that he wanted to be his own boss. That didn’t seem like the dream of someone who didn’t really know what it was that he wanted.

She brought that up to Alex one night as they were closing up the back bar. “Can I ask you something?”

He looked up from where he was filling the sink with hot water, dumping way more soap in than was necessary. “Always.”

She hesitated, not sure if her question was going to offend him. “Does Tristan know that you want…” She gestured around them. “This?”

“No,” Alex said quickly, looking down and grabbing a glass off the counter, dropping it gently into the soapy water. “No, I haven’t told her.”

Isabelle moved closer to him, grabbing the dish tub and pushing it towards him. She handed him a glass. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, keeping his gaze trained on the sink. “It’s just a dream, Isabelle. It’s not going to actually happen.”

She tried to choose her words very carefully. “You don’t know that.”

Alex sighed heavily, finally looking up at her. “I do,” he said. “And that’s okay.”

She didn’t push him any further, didn’t have a clue why he would keep such a big thing from his girlfriend. She didn’t even want to think about why he had told her, couldn’t come up with a reason other than that she had just been a stranger in a bar, someone that he had thought he would never see again. She had been safe then.

Alex’s voice jerked her back to reality, and he was pushing her margarita glass back towards her, now full again. “Okay, try it now.” She didn’t bother arguing with him this time, just took a big drink. “You were right,” he said before she could comment on it. “A little bit of honey and it’s perfect.”

“Perfect,” she agreed. “What’s it called?”

“Hot Mez,” Alex said quickly, grinning at her.

“Oh, come on. You came up with this drink just so you could make that pun.”

“Yes, and?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re so dumb.”

“But you love it,” he said easily.

They had had a couple more close calls since that night at Bootsy, but nothing as close. Isabelle hadn’t brought it up to him, didn’t want to know why he had done what he had done for fear that she wouldn’t like the answer. If there was anything she was good at, it was deflection. It seemed like he was always there, always close to her, putting his hands briefly around her waist as he moved past her to let her know that he was there or brushing his arm against hers as she stood at the well pouring shots. She tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach and the flick of energy that travelled down her spine every time he touched her.

He wasn’t hers. He never would be. The sooner she accepted that, the better.

* * *

“What are you doing?” someone hissed from behind Tristan. She jumped, hitting her elbow on the giant vase of the potted plant she was hiding behind.

“Jesus, Jackie,” she snapped, rubbing her arm and pulling Jackie next to her, out of sight. “I’m spying, okay?”

“Spying on who? She leaned around Tristan, trying to see around the plant, and Tristan yanked her back again.

It was two o’clock in the morning. Tristan was tired, her feet hurt, and it had been a really long night. She had somehow managed to spill a glass of wine all over herself, her book completely soaked and all of the receipt paper she used to write orders on sticking together. It was a mess. So it certainly didn’t help that she was working in the lounge and had to watch Alex flirt with the new bartender all night.

They were at the bar together right now, Isabelle sitting down and eating, Alex doing something behind the bar, making a drink and pushing it over to her. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, their voices hushed, but Alex was leaning on the bar, his face lit up, looking happier than he had with Tristan in weeks.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that their relationship was probably unhealthy and certainly on the rocks. It had been on the rocks for a long time, and yet Tristan felt like things had changed when Isabelle arrived at Lux. She saw how Alex looked at Isabelle, knew it was the same way he had looked at Tristan two years ago when they had met.

The most annoying part was that she actually liked Isabelle, and if she wasn’t convinced that she was sleeping with her boyfriend she might actually want to be friends with her. But she knew that there was something going on between the two of them; she wasn’t born yesterday. So she would continue to be nice to her so that she could try to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Oh, come on,” Jackie said, sighing and turning to leave. Tristan grabbed her arm. “Tris, are you kidding me? There is nothing going on.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I sure do.” Jackie pulled her away from the plant. “Come on. I’m starving and tired. Can we go?”

“Fine.” Tristan pushed away from the wall, rounding the corner and going up to the bar.

“Hey Isabelle,” she said, not even glancing her way as she let herself behind the bar, going up to Alex. “I’m going to Jackie’s,” she said, putting her hand on his chest. She was constantly telling him to button up his shirt more and he constantly refused.

“Okay,” he said. It felt like he was leaning away from her, like he didn’t want her touching him in front of Isabelle, so she hooked her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him towards her and kissing him.

When they first started dating, Alex couldn’t keep his hands off her. The first night they went out was also the first night they slept together, and they didn’t even make it to the de Vries’ suite, Alex picking her up and pushing her against the wall of the elevator. Even when they were fighting, which they did a whole lot of, the physical stuff was something they never had an issue with. They’d had sex in one of the empty storage rooms at Lux more times than Tristan could count, usually after Alex caught her eye from across the lounge and pulled her away as soon as she got cut.

But ever since they had gotten back together, ever since Isabelle had arrived in town, Alex would barely touch her. Even when they were sleeping, he had his back to her, staying on his side of the bed and not rolling over and practically suffocating her like he usually did.

So she kissed him for longer than she normally would, chasing after him when he started to pull back. It took a couple of seconds, but he finally softened, sliding his hand around her waist and biting her bottom lip before pulling back, a little breathless. His voice was rough when he spoke. “I’ll, uh… see you tomorrow?”

She kissed him one more time. “See you tomorrow.” She tried not to glance at Isabelle as she left, knowing that she was probably making a mistake leaving them alone together, especially considering the fact that she wouldn’t be sleeping at their apartment tonight. Hopefully not even Alex would be that dumb, to bring someone back to their apartment when she was just a couple of doors down the hall.

Jackie was watching her through slightly narrowed eyes as she let herself into the kitchen. She had clearly been watching through the round windows of the swinging doors. “Well, that was quite a show.”

“Shut up,” Tristan said, turning Jackie around and pushing her towards the door leading to the back hallway. “Let’s go drink.”

* * *

“I have to tell you something.”

Alex was sitting at Nautica with Jack and Dayo one Friday night, drinks in front of them and peanut shells littering the bar. “Fuck,” Jack said, dropping another shell on the bar, shoving a peanut into his mouth. “You and Tris broke up again.”

“No,” Alex said, glaring at him. “Are you going to let me talk?”

“Fine.” Dayo sighed. “What’s going on?”

It was probably a sign that he was too close with his best friends that he was more nervous to tell them about what he had done than he was about Tristan finding out. “I slept with someone else,” he blurted out.

Jack slammed his fist down on the counter. “You cheated on me?” Dayo snorted into his beer, sending droplets flying across the counter.

“This is why I don’t tell you things,” Alex said, rolling his eyes. “You’re such a dumb fuck.”

“Seriously though.” Jack leaned back on his bar stool. “You cheated on Tristan?”

“No, it was the last time we broke up.”

“That was almost two months ago!”

“I know.”

“Okay,” Dayo said slowly, spinning his glass around on the bar and grabbing another peanut. “Well… if you were single at the time, even if it was just for a couple days or whatever, I’m not seeing the problem.”

Alex squinted at the wall behind the bar, not wanting to meet their eyes. “Yeah, it was with Isabelle.”

Suddenly Alex was surrounded by chaos, Jack spitting his beer out onto the bar while Dayo simultaneously choked on a peanut. Jack pounded him on the back, shooting the bartender a contrite look as he tried to mop up with the tiny bar napkin the best he could.

“Explain,” Jack said. Dayo, eyes watering, took the water the bartender pushed across the bar, downing half of it in one gulp.

“It was before she started working at Lux,” Alex said hurriedly. “I just met her in a bar. Here, actually,” he said, gesturing around them. “I don’t know, it was just supposed to be a one night type of thing and then I walked into Lux a couple days later, and there she was.”

“Does Tristan know?”

“Of course she doesn’t.” Jack answered the question for Alex. “You think if Tris knew about this that A, they would still be together, and B, we wouldn’t have heard that fight from a mile away? Plus our girlfriends would have told us immediately.” He turned to Alex. “Right?”

Alex shrugged. “I mean, yeah. I can’t imagine she would be all that happy about it.”

“You don’t seem like you care,” Dayo said.

“I don’t,” Alex said, and he realized how true the words were as they slipped out of his mouth.

“Wow,” Jack said, just as surprised at how sure and decisive the words were as Alex was.

If there was anything Alex was bad at, it was confronting how he actually felt. That was one of the reasons he had been with Tristan so long, although there were many, both good and bad. But for the past few months, when things were especially bad, he turned away from his actual feelings, trying to live with an out of sight, out of mind philosophy.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I know.”

“Are you going to break up with her?”

That was a more complicated question. Even just logistically, there was a lot tying Alex and Tristan to each other. They lived together in an apartment that Tristan’s father bankrolled. They worked together at Tristan’s father's restaurant. Alex had a decent lump sum in his savings account, due to the fact that he hadn’t paid a bill in two years, but there was no way he would be able to pay first and last month’s rent on a new apartment if he was also fired from his job. They had all the same friends, went to the same clubs, shared furniture and possessions and a life.

He knew that those weren’t good reasons to stay in a relationship with someone, not if he was unhappy and especially not if he spent most of his time thinking about someone else. But that didn’t make it any easier or make the solution any clearer.

“I don’t know,” he said to Jack. “It’s complicated.”

Jack had seen Alex go through a break up with Tristan more times than he could count, and every time he had been there for me, letting him crash on his couch and giving him somewhere to go when he just needed to get away. But this time, Alex knew, would be different. Every other time he had known that they would get back together; if they broke up for this reason, even if Alex kept the reason to himself, that would be it for them.

Alex wasn’t good with change. He never had been.

“If you’re not happy, you’re not happy,” Dayo said matter-of-factly, like he hadn’t been with the same girl for forever. He had been dating Jen for a whole lot longer than Alex had known them, longer than even Jackie and Jack had been together. “You’re the only one who should be in control of your life.”

“Okay, Buddha,” Alex said. He slumped down onto the bar, pushing his whiskey coke away from him.

“If it matters at all,” Jack said. “I really like Isabelle. I think she’s just genuinely a good person.” He didn’t have to finish the thought for Alex to know what he was saying; he had always known how Jack felt about Tristan. He told himself that people could grow and change, that they weren’t tied to who they were in their early twenties forever. But then he saw Tristan be an asshole to one of the new girls or throw a fit at work or yell at him for not wearing a tie to dinner with her father, and he thought maybe he was wrong.

“She is,” he said, thinking about all the hours he had spent with her over the last few weeks. “She’s a really good person.”

As if on cue, Jackie and Isabelle walked into the bar, sitting down at a table near the door. They clearly didn’t see the boys, facing away from them. Jack got up to go say hello to his girlfriend, Alex turning on his stool and watching Isabelle. She was backlit from the light coming in the window at the front of the bar, laughing at something Jackie was saying, and Alex was struck, just like he had been that first night, at how naturally beautiful she was.

Jack made it to their table, coming up behind Jackie and grabbing her so she jumped, hitting him in the arm once she realized that it was him. “What the hell are you doing here?” Alex could hear her ask as Jack leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

“Just having a drink with the guys,” Jack said, gesturing over his shoulder, and both girls turned to look at them, Alex whipping back around on his stool so quickly that he practically tumbled onto the floor, barely managing to catch himself on the edge of the bar.

Before he knew what was happening, the girls were getting up, following Jack over to the bar. Dayo moved down a seat, leaving a spot for Jackie to slide in next to Jack, but Isabelle came right up to Alex, brushing against his leg as she sat down next to him. “Hey,” she said brightly. The bartender came up to them, asking Isabelle what she wanted to drink. “Jack and Coke please?” she said. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” he said, knowing that he probably looked flustered. He was incredibly grateful that Jack had noticed the two of them before he said anything else embarrassing. “Fancy meeting you here.”

It was dark where they were sitting, but he could have sworn her cheeks got a little pink, her freckles standing out even more than they usually did. “So you’re off tonight too, huh?”

“Mark is holding down the fort tonight.”

“What, uh… what happened here?” she asked, gesturing to the mess of beer still all over the bar.

“Jack.” Alex shrugged, figuring that she knew them well enough at this point that that answer would suffice. She snorted, taking her drink from the bartender and smiling at him. “So…” Alex said. He found it incredible that he could still get nervous around her, even after they had spent so much time together. “Are you ready for the anniversary party tomorrow?”

Lux’s anniversary party was alway a big deal, every single host and server and bartender and cook and busboy brought in to staff the occasion, but this year was the tenth anniversary, and it was going to be a giant affair. They were all scheduled to work all day, and Tristan’s father was expecting them to do five or six hundred covers throughout the day. By the time they had closed up last year, Alex was smash drunk, and he got into a huge fight with Tristan because she was pissed off that he had paid too much attention to one of the new hostesses. Good times.

“I think I’m ready,” Isabelle said, swirling the stirrer around in her drink. “But it sounds like it’s just all-around a lot.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said. “You’ll be with me the whole time.”

“Promise?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I promise.”

“You know, Leven says you get a little crazy at parties like this.”

“She’s a liar,” he said quickly, and Isabelle laughed. “I am the picture of professionalism.”

“Sure you are,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. He knew that if he kissed her she would taste sweet and smoky, like soda and alcohol, and he had to stop himself from leaning down and doing it. He knew that no matter what happened between them, he would always remember Nautica as the place he met the girl of his dreams.

Eventually he had to pull back, stand up and announce that he was leaving, getting his credit card back from the bartender. “Where are you going?” Jackie said, pouting. “The night is still young.”

Alex glanced at his phone, noticed that Tristan had called him three times, which was never a good sign. He swiped to get rid of the notifications, shoving it back in his pocket. “It’s two in the morning, Jackie. We all have to be at Lux at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

She sighed heavily, standing up, a little wobbly. “Yeah, you’re right.” She pulled Jack up next to her, slipping under his arm. “Come on, take me home.”

Alex turned to Isabelle, wanting to say something but not sure what. She looked up at him, the neon lighting her up. “Do you want me to walk you home?” he asked. It was a dangerous game; he knew that if he was alone with her at the door of her apartment, he would end up going inside. If they had anything in front of them, he didn’t want to start it off with secrets and lies. She deserved better than that, and if she ever became his girlfriend, he was going to shout it from the rooftops.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, pulling a couple of crumpled up twenties out of her back pocket, leaving them on the bar. “It’s just a couple blocks.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Isabelle,” Dayo said from behind her. “I’m going that way. I’ll walk you.”

They parted ways in front of the bar, Jackie, Jack, and Alex peeling off to the left, Isabelle and Dayo to the right. “See you tomorrow,” he said, walking backwards and practically knocking over Jackie.

“Alex!” she screeched, pushing him away from her. “Get it together!”

“See you,” Isabelle said, winking at him and slipping her arm through Dayo’s as they disappeared around the corner.

Alex was exhausted; all he wanted to do was take a shower and fall into bed, sleep as late as he could before he had to get up and work for fifteen hours. But for some reason, he wasn’t dreading it as much as he usually would, and he knew it was because at least he would be with Isabelle for fifteen hours. There was nothing to dread about that.

They got off the elevator on their floor, Jack and Jackie stopping in their tracks. “What did you do?” Jackie asked, suddenly sounding very sober, her voice low.

“Go, Jackie,” Alex whined, trying to push her forward.

“Alexander,” she said. “What the hell did you do?”

He pushed past her and Jack, rolling his eyes and a little too buzzed to realize what Jackie was staying. His blood ran cold when he saw the pile of his stuff in the hallway, his clothes and books and Xbox, his guitar balanced precariously on top.

“What the fuck?” He turned to Jack, who shook his head.

“I didn’t… I didn’t say anything,” he whispered, as if that would stop Jackie from hearing him.

“Didn’t say anything about what?” Jackie said. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Alex said quickly. “I didn’t do anything.”

The door opened and Tristan appeared, dropping another pile of clothes on the floor. “Tristan,” Alex said sharply, and she looked up, narrowing her eyes at him when she saw him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Alex heard the door slam shut behind him, knew that Jackie and Jack had escaped safely into their apartment. Usually when Tristan pulled this shit, he let it ride, knew that things would blow over, but now he found himself just really, incredibly, beyond pissed off. He was tired of fighting, tired of her holding the fact that it was her apartment over his head, tired of feeling trapped with someone he couldn’t love anymore, tired of compromising his own dreams because he was too scared of what she might say if he told her what he really wanted out of life.

He was just tired.

He stormed down the hall, pushed into the apartment. “Tristan,” he said again. “What is going on?”

“You know what you did,” she said coldly. She was in their bedroom, pulling things out of the dresser drawers and throwing them on the bed, creating piles of his shit. “What the fuck is this?” she asked, holding up the cherry stem hiding in his underwear drawer.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. “It’s not mine.”

Tristan made a noise in her throat, tossing it on the bed. “I’m done, Alexander. For real this time.”

“You say that every time. Why is this any different?”

“I know what you did,” she said, finally looking up at him. “I know you’re sleeping with Isabelle.”


	5. we ride the highs and lows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / we ride the highs and lows  
> / you'll never be alone  
> / even when your world explodes  
> / cause after all the smoke clears  
> / i will be right here  
> smoke clears by andy grammer

When he had seen all of his crap piled up in the hallway, Alex assumed that he would be sleeping on Jack’s couch that night, and he was already dreading it, knowing he was going to get no sleep and go to work with a sore back and a stiff neck. As he walked to Lux the next morning, his work shirt tucked into the back of his pants and the sun beating down on his shoulders, he wished that he had gotten the chance to sleep on Jack’s couch.

He and Tristan fought almost all night, only stopping long enough for Alex to take a shower and even then he had to convince Tristan not to stand outside the bathroom door and yell at him.

She was sure that he had been sleeping with Isabelle since she had started working at Lux, and he was thanking the small sense of self-control he had that he could truthfully deny her allegation. Of course, he didn’t tell her that she was basically right; even though he hadn’t technically cheated on her, he knew Tristan certainly wouldn’t see it that way.

“You’re seriously going to stand there and tell me that you haven’t been sleeping with Isabelle,” she said to Alex, arms crossed in front of her after he had pushed his way into the apartment.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He pushed a hand through his hair. His heart was beating so fast he was sure she would be able to hear it and call him out on his lie. At first, he wasn’t sure what she knew, didn’t know if she had somehow found out that when they were broken up, he had indeed done exactly what she was accusing him of doing.

“This whole time,” Tristan said. “Ever since you started at Lux.”

Alex had to stop himself from breathing a sigh of relief. “What? No, of course not.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Alex.” Tristan stormed out of the bedroom, trying to slam the door shut behind her, but Alex caught it, following her out into the kitchen. She turned and glared at him. “I’m not an idiot. I see how you look at her.”

Well, he couldn’t help that. He had sure tried. “There is nothing going on.”

“You are so full of shit, Alexander!”

That went on for hours.

They didn’t reach any sort of resolution. Tristan finally went into their bedroom at about seven in the morning, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it. Alex figured he could go to Jackie and Jack’s, but he knew they wouldn’t be awake and he couldn’t muster up the energy to get off the couch and go down the hall. He didn’t want to explain what was going on, not even to Jack. He didn’t have it in him anymore.

Alex pulled his phone out of his pocket. It had been buzzing all night, at first with texts from Jack and Jackie, asking what was going on and if he was okay. Eventually, Jack had said he had to go to bed but that they would leave the door unlocked for Alex if he needed it. It was seven o’clock in the morning, he hadn’t slept a wink, and he was supposed to be at Lux in three hours.

As if on cue, he got a text from Isabelle that just said “cream and sugar?” Every time they had to open the bar together, she brought him coffee, and he texting her back quickly, a row of sleeping emojis and a “yes please.” He closed his eyes in relief, managing to fall asleep for approximately thirty minutes before Tristan’s alarm went off, jerking him out of his slumber.

He slipped out of the apartment before Tristan could come out of the bathroom, grabbing his work shirt off the top of the pile stacked up just inside the apartment door. At some point last night, he had grabbed all of his shit from the hallway, pushing it back inside as Tristan continued to yell at him.

“You can’t live here!” she was saying over and over. “It’s my fucking apartment, and you haven’t paid anything for it since the day you moved in.”

“Because you told me not to,” he snapped back at her. “I told you I would pay whatever you wanted, and you said over and over again that you didn’t want that.” If he could go back and do any one thing differently, it would be to insist that he be put on the lease and be responsible for half of the rent, even if it was more than he could afford. Tristan threw that apartment in his face every chance she got, and having a decent amount of money in his savings account was not worth this argument.

“You should have insisted,” she said, watching him carefully as he kicked his belongings back into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

He figured he might be able to grab a nap in one of the back booths at Lux before everyone got there, and he willed himself to just get to the restaurant, putting one foot in front of the other and trying to keep his eyes open in the warm autumn sun.

This fight was different than any he had had with Tristan before. In the past, she would accuse him of something that he had definitely done. They were all little things: being late for a dinner reservation, not doing the laundry while she was working a dinner shift, having an attitude when she wanted to fly to the Hamptons for a week in the summer or go to Cabo over Christmas. This time, he knew he was in the right. This time, he hadn’t done what she was saying. He wasn’t going to cave and say that he did, and he certainly wasn’t going to apologize.

He didn’t know how he could have made it any clearer to her, but he felt like he had said “I am not sleeping with Isabelle” about two dozen times over the course of the night. She refused to believe him, and he knew it wouldn’t matter what he said at this point. She was going to think that everything he was saying to her was a lie.

“Why do you think that?” he asked her around four in the morning. They were on the couches in the living room, sitting across from each other. At this point, they were past pissed off and well into exhausted. Tristan scraped her hair into a ponytail, leaning back and propping her legs up on the coffee table.

“I just hear things,” she said.

Alex barely stopped himself from snorting. No one knew that he and Isabelle had slept together except for the two of them. There was nothing Tristan could have heard. If he flirted a little bit behind the bar when the restaurant was slow and it was just the two of them… well, that still wasn’t cheating and he hadn’t done anything more incriminating than that.

“Things like what?”

“Things like things,” she said, her tone exasperated.

“Whatever, Tristan,” he said, rolling his eyes, knowing that would only piss her off even more.

They hadn’t broken up, for some reason. It could’ve been that they just didn’t get around to it, what with all the yelling and accusations and Alex trying to prevent Tristan from throwing everything he owned out into the hallway. Eventually she just got tired of arguing him, locking him out of the bedroom and falling asleep. The most exhausting part of all of it was knowing that it wasn’t over yet. They were either going to work things out or they were going to break up, and there was going to be a hell of a lot of conversation leading up to either of those things.

The main restaurant was dark when he got there, the only light and noise coming from the kitchen where the prep cooks were blasting music and getting ready for the day. Alex weaved his way through the rooms, the VIP room calling his name. Once he got there he set the alarm on his phone for nine o’clock, giving him about an hour to sleep. It wouldn’t be nearly enough, but it was definitely the best he could do for now.

When it went off, waking him up, he opened to his eyes to see that the lights were still off, although he could hear people moving around in the front of the restaurant. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, a headache already pounding behind them. He jumped when he saw Isabelle sitting across from him, staring at him.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked, like it was totally normal to be sleeping in the back room on the biggest day of the year.

She slid a Starbucks cup towards him across the table, and Alex took it gratefully, not even letting it cool down before drinking half of it in one gulp. “Shit, that’s good,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Rough night?”

“Something like that,” he said, sighing heavily and resisting the urge to put his head down on the table. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

He had woken up just in time, Leven walking back into the VIP room and seeing the two of them sitting there. “Oh, thank God you’re here,” she said. She already looked frazzled, her hair falling out of the knot on top of her head. He knew that at some point she would disappear into the office and come out changed and with a full face of makeup on, but for now she looked like she was about to fall apart.

“Chill out, Lev,” he said, rolling his eyes at her which only served to exacerbate her and his headache. “You’ve done this a million times.”

“Up,” she said, grabbing his hand and physically hauling him out of the booth. He barely managed to catch himself. “Go prep.”

Alex followed Isabelle to the main bar, sitting on the counter as she pulled out limes and lemons and oranges from the mini fridges, taking note of what they needed to stock up on. It was even more important than on a normal night to make sure they had everything they needed; Josh was going to be overworked as it was and they definitely wouldn’t have time to run back and forth from the bar to the kitchen or the supply room.

He didn’t even try to bother hiding his yawn as Isabelle was setting up, and she finally turned to him, frowning. “Okay. What the hell is going on?”

Throughout the night, Alex had thought a lot about what he would say to Isabelle when he saw her. He had finally decided he wouldn’t tell her what was going on, knew her well enough to know that she would think this was her fault. But now with her standing there in front of him with that look on her face… well, he couldn’t keep secrets from her.

“Tristan and I got in a fight,” he said, knowing that there was a heaviness sitting in his voice and trying to minimize it as much as he could. “A big one.”

“How come?” Isabelle asked. She sounded concerned, and he was struck again at how much he wanted to be with her, wanted to call her his girlfriend, wanted to go home with her at the end of the night.

“It’s… complicated,” he said, shrugging and trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. “I mean, we’re always fighting about something, you know?”

“That sounds… exhausting,” Isabelle said diplomatically. She leaned over the cutting board, concentrating on the orange in front of her.

“You have no idea,” he snorted. “I’ve been up all night, except for the hour of sleep I got here.”

“Oh boy,” she said. “It’s gonna be a great day for both of us then, huh?”

“What are you talking about?”

She stopped cutting up the orange, looking up at him and frowning. “You’re cranky when you’re tired.”

Alex made a face at her. “Are you perhaps thinking about yourself? Or perhaps yourself?”

“Shut up.”

He smirked, grabbing an orange from the container in front of her and peeling it, popping a section into his mouth. He wanted to tell her that they had been fighting about her, that he wanted to break up with Tristan and be with her so badly that he could barely stand it, but for some reason he didn’t. He had certainly thought about it enough. But there was no guarantee that if he did break up with Tristan, Isabelle would even want to be with him. And if he did break up with Tristan, it needed to be because he was sure of the decision, not because he was blinded by Isabelle.

“Get down here and help me,” she said once he had finished his orange. “I’m not covering for your ass all day, Ludwig.”

He snorted, hopping down and bumping her with his hip. Being around her felt like he was waking up from a really long sleep, like he was seeing the world in color again after it had been black and white for years. And he knew that wasn’t fair to Tristan. None of it was.

But it wasn’t fair to him to be trapped in his own life like this. They would both be better off if they weren’t together anymore.

He had made up his mind: he knew it, and so did Tristan. They needed to break up. He would do it tomorrow, after they had both gotten some sleep and a little space. They needed to start over.

* * *

Alex looked like shit.

Isabelle hadn’t known that he would already be at the restaurant when she got there; she hadn’t been able to sleep, too nervous for the hours ahead of her, so she figured she would get there early and start setting up, try to channel that anxious energy into something productive. Luca was already there when she got in, sitting at a table rolling silverware. “Hey!” she said, looking up when Isabelle came into the main dining room. “Your boyfriend is sleeping in the back.”

Isabelle, trying to juggle her bag and both cups of coffee, stopped and looked at her. “Huh?”

“Alex,” Luca said, grabbing a fork from the dish tub in front of her. “He’s in the VIP room.”

“Not my boyfriend,” she called back over her shoulder, hoping to hell that Tristan or her father weren’t somewhere in the restaurant. Tristan had been laying low, but Isabelle knew she was watching her. That girl was too smart for anything to slip by her.

Isabelle desperately wanted Alex to break up with Tristan, not that she was going to tell him that. She knew that even if he did, nothing could happen between them, not when they were all working in the restaurant together. She barely even knew Tristan, but she knew that all hell would break loose if that happened. So she would bide her time, be as good of a friend as she could, and keep all of her feelings bottled up like a normal healthy individual.

Once she saw Alex sprawled across one of the bench seats at a back booth, she knew she wouldn’t be able to wake him up with a Mack truck, so she settled down in the seat across from him, putting the coffee cups on the table and pulling her phone out, scrolling through Instagram to pass the time. What the hell was he doing here?

He didn’t really tell her much of anything when he woke up, followed her to the front bar to get ready for the day. All she found out was that he and Tristan had been fighting, not why or what he was actually feeling. She figured he would tell her when he was ready.

After a while, he started to seem like the Alex she knew, hyper and loud and ready for the day. More servers and hostesses and busboys and barbacks started to drift through the doors, the restaurant filling up with noise and music and loud conversations. Amandla, the event planner, was sitting at the front bar, going over a list of things to do with Alex, so he didn’t notice Tristan walking in.

Isabelle sure did though. She didn’t look away when Tristan caught her eye, didn’t want to seem like she had anything to hide, so she just smiled as smoothly as she could, shrugging when Tristan ignored her completely, going back into the kitchen. Jackie and Jen were close on her heels, the two of them throwing Isabelle a wave as they went.

After Amandla had left, going into the office to meet with Leven, Jackie came bursting out of the kitchen, looking behind her like she was being chased. “Alex!” she hissed, calling him down to the end of the bar. “Iz. Come here.”

Isabelle made her way down to where Jackie was standing at the pick-up spot. “What’s up?” Alex asked, cleaning out a highball glass as he spoke.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, the words pouring out of her. “I didn’t even think about it until she brought it up to me. I deleted it but she already saw it. I had no idea that’s why last night went down like that.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex said, frowning. Isabelle looked up at him, realizing quickly that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what was going on.

“The picture,” Jackie said, like the two of them were stupid. “On my Instagram story. It was from the bar last night, just me and Jack but you two were in the background, and I think Tris…” She looked over her shoulder again, like she was expecting Tristan to appear at any moment, which was a definite possibility. “I think Tris took it the wrong way.”

Alex winced, running a hand down his face. “She didn’t mention it.”

“Wait, really?” Jackie asked.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “But that explains a lot.” He put the glass down on the counter, glancing at Isabelle. “Do you still have it?”

Jackie pulled her phone out of her serving apron, unlocking it and tapping the screen a couple of times before sliding it across the bar to Alex. He grabbed it, pulling it closer to him and tipping it to his left so that Isabelle could see it too. It was a selfie of Jackie and Jack, her arm hooked around his neck, but in the back Alex was leaning close to Isabelle. He knew he was saying something into her ear, but it looked like he was going in to kiss her.

Yeah, Isabelle thought. That didn’t look great.

“Fuck,” Alex said. “So that’s what she was on about.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jackie said again, taking her phone back. “I told her nothing is going on with you two, but…”

“I told her a hundred times,” Alex said. “She isn’t listening to me anymore.”

Isabelle was starting to get a picture of what was going on, but she needed to talk to Jackie about it later, some other time when they weren’t five minutes away from opening for lunch on the busiest day of the year.

The door to the kitchen opened behind her, and Jackie bolted, even though it was just Leven. “Are you all ready?” she asked, flying by the bar and not even waiting for an answer.

“All set, boss,” Alex yelled after her, but she was already up at the front door, all of the hostesses gathered around her as she spoke to them. He rolled his eyes at Isabelle. “She’s always hella panicked for the first hour or so and then things get a little better.” Isabelle just looked at him, biting her lip. “What’s wrong?”

“You were fighting about me,” she said, knowing this was the exact wrong time to be doing this, but she just couldn’t help herself.

Alex squinted, making a face. “Yes.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. Her feelings were Alex were pretty clear; they had been clear from the beginning, at least to her. She had the biggest crush on him in the history of the world. That wasn’t a secret. His feelings, on the other hand, were a little more complicated.

“Listen,” he said, leaning close to her. People were starting to file into the restaurant, the hostesses leading them to tables. Already Isabelle could see Tristan and Luca and Jackie going up to their first tables in the lounge area. They had maybe thirty seconds before they were hit by the first round of tickets. “I want to explain everything to you and I will… I just…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said quickly. “I get it. Not a great time.” She ducked her head as Tristan came up to them. It was going to be a long day.

“Alex,” Tristan snapped. “I need drinks.”

“Did you ring them in?” Alex raised an eyebrow at her. Everyone knew that Tristan verbally requested her drinks from the bar before she rang them in; it was generally faster so everyone let her get away with it. Apparently that’s not what they were going to do today.

Tristan narrowed her eyes at him. “Uh… no.” Isabelle could feel the ice dripping off her words. “Do you need me to go and do that?”

“Yep,” Alex said, ripping a ticket off the machine spitting them out in front of him and not meeting her eyes. “If you could please.”

She stomped away, and Isabelle waited until she was back in the wait station, well out of earshot. “Alex. What the fuck?”

“What?” He shrugged, moving behind her to grab a bottle of Patron off the shelf behind them. “She’s gotta ring them in.”

When Alex was being stubborn, he could really be stubborn. Isabelle had seen it a couple of times with Tristan or when Leven pushed him to do something he didn’t want to do. And he was being stubborn now. Sure enough, about ten seconds later, Tristan’s ticket came through. Alex grabbed it, handing it off to Isabelle.

“Oh no,” she groaned. “You’re gonna do this all day, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

They barely even had time to talk to each other. Within minutes of opening, every table in the restaurant was full. Mark and Jack were ensconced at the back bar, churning out drinks as quickly as they could, and Dayo ran back and forth from the lounge to the garden, jumping in where he was needed. Leven passed by them so quickly that she was practically a blur, figuring out crises and putting out fires (not literally, thankfully; that would be all they needed). After about an hour or so, Isabelle felt like she was falling into a rhythm. It was absolutely the busiest bar she had ever worked, but Alex was always there to cover her back, and she didn’t feel stressed.

As the day got later, the crowd got a little rowdier. Around five o’clock people started to come in just to hang out at the bar, girls pushing up to the bar where Alex was working. Isabelle knew he was raking in the tips, all the twenty-somethings in West Hollywood completely charmed by him. Isabelle watched him out of the corner of his eye as she worked, trying to pay attention to the people in front of her but also a little charmed by him.

Okay, she was more than a little charmed by him.

He smiled at everyone like he knew them personally, greeted some people by name who he recognized as regulars. Even though there were people crowded up to the bar three deep, he took his time with everyone, talking to them like they were the only ones standing there. Behind the bar, he was fast and sure of himself, not making mistakes or getting stuck in the weeds. He was really, really, really good at this.

At one point he caught Isabelle looking at him, winking at her as he set up a row of shots for the sorority girls waiting in front of them. “You okay?” he asked, barely audible over the noise of the bar. She nodded, screwing the top onto her shaker. She was going to be exhausted tomorrow, her feet were killing her, and she was going to have a massive headache, but it was all going to be worth it. She figured she had made at least four hundred dollars by now, and they still had the after-dinner rush to go.

It was about seven-thirty when Leven came over to tell them that they could take a quick break before dinner got underway. She brought Jack, Mark, and Dayo up from the garden bar, closing it temporarily and shooing Alex and Isabelle into the kitchen to get something to eat.

They settled themselves at one of the tables in the back alley behind Lux. There were tables and chairs back there, dragged out by Lux employees who wanted somewhere to sit when they had a cigarette. It was a nice night, the air cool around them, the sun just starting to go down.

Alex flopped down into a chair, slumping down and cracking his neck. “Holy shit, I am tired.”

“Don’t go there,” Isabelle warned. “We still have a long ways to go.”

“I know,” he groaned. “I know.” He pulled himself up straight, twirling his fork around in his pasta, shoving a giant bite in his mouth even though there was steam wafting off of it. “Ow, Jesus, that’s hot.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes, stabbing her fork into a piece of lettuce. “You’re so dumb,” she said, taking a bite of her salad. He stuck his tongue out at her in return.

“So,” he said through a mouthful of fettuccine. “What do you think of your first Luxiversary so far?”

“It’s great.” She moved a piece of crispy chicken around her plate. “Exhausting, but really cool.”

Alex beamed at her. You had to really love bartending to think it was fun to spend sixteen hours on your feet catering to drunk people, and he really loved bartending. It practically came out of his pores, and she wished not for the first time that he would just tell Tristan he wanted his own bar. He would be so good at it, and she just wanted him to see that the same way that she did.

“Isn’t it?” he said. He picked up his drink, the ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass. “I remember my first anniversary party. Tristan and I got in a fight in the storage room during the dinner rush.” Isabelle snorted into her dinner, failing miserably at suppressing it. “Shut up,” he said. “I swear that one wasn’t my fault.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” he said, taking a drink. “God, you make good Old Fashioneds.” She blushed, heat running through her cheeks. “We fight so much, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

“Can I ask you something?” Isabelle felt like she was at a place in her friendship with Alex where they could be brutally honest with each other, where she could ask him things about himself that he usually tried to keep pushed down, hidden from the world.

“Always,” he said, taking another drink and draining the glass. “Please marry me,” he said before she could say anything. “I want you around to make these for me for the rest of forever.”

“Shut up,” she said, ducking her head so he couldn’t see the stupid look on her face. “Why have you been with Tristan for so long if you guys fight so much? Wouldn’t it be easier to just… not do that?”

“Absolutely,” Alex said quickly. “But it’s complicated.”

“Explain it to me.”

He glanced behind him, making sure no one was lurking at the door. “Okay.” He leaned forward. “I’ll tell you the long story some other time but here’s the short of it. When we started dating, she was great. I was young and dumb and I thought I was going to marry her. But by the time things started to get tense and weird, I was in too deep.”

“In too deep how?”

“It’s stupid.” Alex sighed. “It’s just… I live in her apartment. Her father is my boss. She’s paid all the bills. I can’t afford to lose this job and I don’t want to work anywhere else.”

“So… you’re staying with her out of convenience?”

“I guess so,” he said bluntly. “She could really fuck up my life, you know? And she knows it.”

“That’s no way to live, Alex.”

“I know.” He pushed his empty plate away from him, scraping against the top of the table. “Can I tell you something that I probably shouldn’t?”

Isabelle’s heart started beating faster, and she squeezed her hands together under the table where he wouldn’t see. “Please do,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Alex glanced behind him again, and she wanted to just yell at him to spit it out before her head exploded. “I want to be with you,” he said, his voice low, barely audible over the sounds of the cars passing on the street off to the side of the building. “I have ever since that night… the night I met you. And I just wish this wasn’t so complicated.”

“I…” Isabelle was genuinely shocked, words escaping her completely. She had hoped he felt that way, but never guessed that he would say it outright. He was the kind of dancing around the issue at hand. “I want that too.”

“Good,” he said, almost smugly, sitting back. “I promise I’ll get things figured out.” He didn’t seem bothered by her lack of words.

She opened her mouth to say something, to tell him that she would wait for him, that she wanted to be with him too, more than she had ever wanted anything, when she was interrupted. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Alex didn’t turn around, just closed his eyes, sighing wearily. “Come on, Tris. Can we not do this now?”

Tristan was standing at the top of the stairs, glass of wine and an unlit cigarette in one hand, the other planted on her hip. She looked perfect, as she always did, not like she had just been running around frantically for the last ten hours. Isabelle felt herself sliding down in her seat, like that would shield her from view.

“No, we’re gonna do this now,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “If you’re gonna do this right in front of my face and my fucking job, we’re gonna have this conversation right here and now.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said, standing up. Isabelle didn’t know if he was shielding her from Tristan’s view on purpose. “You have got to let this go.”

“I don’t have to do jack shit, Alexander. You’re so fucking disrespectful, it’s unbelievable.”

This had to be what hell was like, Isabelle thought, trying to figure out how she could make her mistake. Alex shifted, and she could see Tristan coming down the stairs in front of him. He looked back at her, jerking his chin towards the door, and she scrambled up, trying not to meet Tristan’s gaze as she slipped past her and up the stairs. Tristan didn’t say anything, but she kept her gaze trained on Isabelle the whole time. She turned around at the top of her steps, wanting to say something, anything, whatever it took to get Tristan to stop talking to him like that, but he shook his head almost imperceptibly. So she pushed through the door and back into the restaurant, the smells coming from the kitchen and the noise from the dining rooms surrounding her.

“Where is Alex?” Leven said, punching something into the POS system at the wait station, Jackie standing next to her.

“Uh…” Isabelle swallowed. “Out there with Tristan.”

“Fuck,” Leven muttered under her breath. Jackie looked at Isabelle, alarmed, and she tried to convey to her friend that shit was going down out there. “Okay, can you go back to the front bar? I’m sorry, I know that was the shortest break in history, but I need to send Mark back to the garden bar.”

“No problem,” Isabelle said, catching Jackie’s eye one more time before disappearing into the kitchen and out the other side at the bar. She thought she might throw up, anxiety twisting her stomach into a knot. She tried to concentrate on the customers in front of her, on the routine of blending margaritas and shaking martinis and pouring out shots, but every time someone walked out of the kitchen, her heart damn near jumped out of her chest.

After what felt like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes, Jackie came rushing out of the kitchen, tapping her knuckles on the end of the bar and waiting for Isabelle to finish up running a customer’s credit card. “What did you do?” Jackie asked her.

“What are you talking about?”

“What did you say out there?”

“Nothing,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “What are you talking about?”

Jackie bit her lip, shaking her head. “Alex and Tris. He just dumped her.”


	6. but even if it takes some time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / i want you the most  
> / but even if it takes some time  
> / imma show you how to love right  
> / i keep telling you i'm not her  
> / i'm so sorry that you got hurt  
> not her by erika costell

With the prospect of losing his job and his apartment looming over his head, Alex knew he needed to start picking up side jobs again. He resented the prospect, didn’t want to do anything but bartend, was so tired by the time he got done with a shift at Lux that he couldn’t even think about getting up at seven o’clock in the morning to go to some fashion house on Santee Alley and stand in front of a camera for hours on end.

And yet here he was, taking an Uber to some mansion in the canyon a couple of days after the big anniversary party. It was too early and he hadn’t had enough coffee and he was yawning so much that he thought his eyes might pop out of his head. He had to keep bouncing his leg up and down to make sure that he didn’t fall asleep in the backseat of the car.

He hadn’t been back to the apartment since the anniversary party. He didn’t know if Tristan had been there, only knew that she certainly wasn’t at Jack’s apartment, which was where he had been staying. Everything had blown up at the restaurant right before the dinner rush started, and he was going to have to do a hell of a lot of groveling to Leven over the next few weeks to keep her from being mad at him. If he still even had a job, that is.

He hadn’t meant for things to go down that way. Even though Tristan drove him crazy, even though she was so intense she made coffee nervous, even though they fought constantly and hadn’t had sex in weeks and spent more time ignoring each other than they did speaking, he still loved her. He would always love her. And breaking up with her wasn’t an easy decision.

Except, all of a sudden, it was. When she appeared behind him out in the alley behind the restaurant, yelling at something, he just kept his eyes trained on Isabelle, thought about the words he had just said to her, and he knew he had to jump, no matter what the consequences were. He had to take charge of his own life. He had to break the bad habits he had been wrapped up in for the last two years. He had to do something.

“What are you saying?” Tristan asked him after he escaped inside, after he had told her that they were done. “Are you breaking up with me?” 

It would be easy enough for Alex to take back his words, to tell her that he just wanted to be done fighting, but he had to do this. “Yeah,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound shaky. “It’s not working, Tris. We can’t sit in this cycle anymore and pretend like it is.”

He had never broken up with Tristan before; it had always been the other way around, and he realized she didn’t have any idea what to do. He doubted she had ever been broken up with before in her life honestly. There was a long silence, and Alex could hear Leven yelling something down the server’s hall in the background.

“Fine,” Tristan said finally. She put her wine glass down on the table, leaning past him and brushing his arm as he did so. He took a step back, trying to get out of her reach. She brought her cigarette up to her mouth, cupping her hand around it as she lit it and letting out a puff of air. “Fine, Alexander,” she said again. “But you know that if you do this, this is really it.”

“Yeah,” he said firmly. “I know.”

“And you’re sure you’ve thought this through?” She narrowed her eyes at him, clenching her jaw like she always did when she was mad. “Thought about all the consequences?”

“What is that supposed to mean, Tristan?” He knew exactly what she was referring to: this job, their apartment, the shared friendships and places and memories he wouldn’t have anymore.

“You know what it means.”

He grabbed his plate and his glass from the table, making sure he looked her square in the eye before he went back inside. “Yeah, Tris,” he said. “I’ve thought about this. And I’m one hundred percent sure.” He pushed past her, heading up the stairs to drop his dishes in the kitchen and go back behind the bar. If this was going to be his last night at Lux, he was going to make the most of it.

Part of him was expecting Tristan to immediately run to her father, for Mr. de Vries to fire him on the spot, but the rest of the night passed by quickly, a weight lifted on his heart even if he now had a hundred other things to worry about. Mr. de Vries didn’t come out of one of the VIP rooms where he was surrounded by a couple dozen people, and Alex kept his head down. He managed to slip out the back door of the restaurant at about three o’clock in the morning, telling Isabelle that he would tell her everything later before stumbling back to his apartment without thinking about the fact that he wasn’t welcome there anymore.

He knocked on Jack’s door, hoping like hell that Tristan wasn’t in there. It was Jackie who flung it open; she had finished her side work in record time, beating him back to the apartment complex by a mile. He was about to open his mouth, ask whether his ex-girlfriend was sitting on their couch in a whisper just in case she was, but Jackie grabbed his arm, yanking him inside.

“What the hell happened?” she shrieked with no regard for the fact that it was three in the morning and he was exhausted. “What did you do?”

It was no surprise that Tristan had immediately run to the Coven to tell them exactly what had happened. The problem with that was that she was telling them what had happened from her perspective, which was undoubtedly skewed and full of accusations about Alex cheating on her, none of which was accurate.

“Jackie, can we not do this right now? I’m so tired.”

“Where are you going to go, Alexander?” she asked him, pushing him down onto the couch, normally so uncomfortable but now a giant relief. He sank back into the cushions, knowing that if he closed his eyes for even a second that would be it for him. “If you’re really broken up for good, you can’t go back to that apartment.”

“I know,” he said, sighing heavily, the weight of everything suddenly hitting him. Jack came out of the bedroom, going over to the fridge and pulling out a beer, handing it to him wordlessly. He held it in his hands, turning it over, too tired to even open it.

“Just tell me what happened,” Jackie said. “Give me the CliffsNotes version before you pass out.”

“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he said, and Jack sat down next to him, cracking his own beer open. “It was too much.”

He put his beer down on the coffee table in front of him, dropping his head into his hands. Jackie sat on his other side, putting her hand on his back tentatively. She had been Tristan’s best friend for a long time; she had watched their entire relationship. She knew better than anyone what the two of them did to each other. And she knew that this was different than before, just for the simple fact that Alex had never broken up with Tristan before.

“Is this about Isabelle?” she asked, barely above a whisper, and Alex knew she was expecting Tristan to come bursting in the door at any moment, thought maybe even at this moment she might be standing in the hallway listening.

“No,” Alex said firmly. He wasn’t sure if it was true or if he was just trying to convince himself. “That’s part of it, I guess, but this has been a long time coming. You know that.”

“I know,” Jackie said. “I just have to ask this so don’t bite my head off, but… did you cheat on Tris with Isabelle?”

Alex was really glad they all kept framing the question that way so that he didn’t have to lie to everyone. “No,” he said quickly, hoping that Jackie was tired enough not to doubt him. Thankfully, she didn’t seem like she sensed anything suspicious, although he didn’t dare meet Jack’s eye, who was squirming next to him. The fact that he had managed to keep Alex’s secret safe from Jackie for even twenty-four hours was a damn miracle.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve got to crash or I’m gonna fall asleep right here.” She stood up, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch and throwing it at Alex’s head. “Sleep here. We’ll figure out what to do next in the morning.”

He barely managed to unbutton his shirt and kick off his pants before he passed out.

Now, a couple of days later, they had a plan. Alex was going to stay with Jackie and Jack until he could find a place; he certainly had money to put down a couple months worth of rent and a security deposit. He would start modeling again to replenish his savings account, and he would talk to Mr. de Vries as soon as he could to make sure he could continue working at Lux. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

That was how he found himself in an Uber at seven in the morning heading to a photo shoot. It had been months since he had gone on a go-see; he had gotten lazy and complicit. But yesterday he had dragged himself off of Jack’s couch early, headed to meet the owner of Spark, charmed her enough to get the job.

It wasn’t much, just over a grand, but he could stretch that out for weeks if he was careful. All of a sudden, he was back where he was two and a half years ago when he was brand new to Los Angeles and only had a couple of bucks in his pocket.

“Thanks, man,” Alex said to the Uber driver when they pulled up outside the mansion. He hopped out of the car, stretching his legs and almost dropping his cup of coffee in the process, squinting in the sun. He took a deep breath, heading towards the front door, which was propped open. The house was empty of people, but it was a straight shot through to the backyard where Alex could see loads of people running around, the pool stretched to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the rest of the canyon.

“Alex!” someone called out to him as he walked through the back door out onto the patio. It was Elizabeth, the owner of Spark and the head of the show today. She was short and blonde and had more energy than anyone Alex had ever seen. He tried to perk up as quickly as he could, not wanting to look like he had only gotten three hours of sleep, even though that was true.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek and pushing his sunglasses up onto his head. “Thank you so much for having me.”

“Of course,” she called back over her shoulder, already rushing off to the next thing she had to do.

Alex sat down in the makeup chair, smiling weakly at the makeup artist and the hairdresser, rubbing a hand down his face. At least he would be able to close his eyes for a couple minutes while they got him ready. It had been a little while since he had done any of this, but it was all starting to come back to him. It was warm out, but there was a nice breeze flowing through the backyard, and he felt his eyelids getting heavier as the makeup artist smoothed something under his eyes.

All too quickly, they were done, the art director coming over to grab him and tell him the vibe they were going for. “We’re thinking very intimate,” he said. “She told you that you’re gonna be working with someone, right?” Alex nodded. Elizabeth had said a lot of things very quickly yesterday, and he had only caught about a third of them, if he was lucky.

“Yeah,” Alex said, looking around. “She here?”

“Yep,” the art director said, pointing behind Alex. “Looks like she just got here. You worked with her before?”

Alex turned around, his heart practically stopping in his chest. “Hey!” Isabelle said, a giant smile on her face. He didn’t think he had ever seen her without makeup on, and she was even prettier if that was possible. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“Maybe if you’d stop stalking me,” Alex said, trying to control the smile on his face and failing miserably.

“Oh, shut up.” Isabelle looked around at the loads of people milling around them, setting up lights and monitors and racks of clothes. “You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Alex said, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck and resisting the urge to mess his hair up, the way he always did when he was nervous. Truthfully, he felt a whole lot better about the whole thing now that Isabelle was here; just being around her calmed him down.

Isabelle got rushed into hair and makeup while Alex changed. He was glad that he had been going to the gym with Jack and Dayo so much, had been doing it mainly to get out of the house and away from Tristan, but realized now that he had to stand in front of a couple dozen people in a swimsuit that all that time wasn’t wasted.

He was also really glad that he was broken up with Tristan because being around Isabelle like this was making his brain a little fuzzy. He sat behind the camera and watched her do some of her solo shots in the pool, so serious when the camera was on her, turning back into her normal, bubbly, happy self the second she was done, sticking her tongue out at him and splashing water in his direction.

“Okay,” the photographer said, looking behind him for Alex. “Are you ready?”

Alex swallowed, nodding, and he hitched up his shorts as he headed out to meet Isabelle in the water. Someone turned the music on, Cash Cash coming on loud over the speakers, and Alex felt himself slipping back into the person he used to be, the one who could nail a photoshoot without even thinking about it, the one who was carefree and confident, the one who knew exactly what to do to get what he wanted.

“Hey,” Isabelle said when he made it up to her, the warm water of the pool splashing around their ankles. “You ready?” she asked him again.

He took a deep breath, hiking his shorts up again, very aware of how low they were falling on his hips, and he slid his hand around her waist as he moved behind her, her skin slippery under his fingers. He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the click of the camera as she tilted her head back, her hair falling over one shoulder.

“That’s good!” the photographer said, looking up at them from behind the lens. “Alex, can you get a little closer to her?”

Alex nodded, any words he might have had getting stuck in his throat. He took a step forward, pressing his chest against her back, her skin warm from the sun, water droplets caught between them. “A little bit closer,” the photographer said again, and Alex hoped that his ears were not burning bright red. Isabelle arched her back, reaching her arm up and behind her, her fingers curling around the back of his neck, and he slid his hand over her hip, gripping her hip bone tightly.

“Perfect!” he heard Elizabeth say, and he brought his lips down to her neck, touching the place where her shoulder met her neck. “Alex, that’s great. Keep doing that.”

Isabelle shifted against him, and when he pulled back, dragging his eyes up to her face, he could see that she was smirking. “Don’t stop,” she murmured to him under her breath, only loud enough for him to hear, and he made a noise in his throat.

Honestly. They were all trying to kill him.

* * *

“It’s gonna be fine,” Leven hissed. “But you have to calm down.”

“I’m calm,” he hissed back, bouncing his leg up and down nervously and completely negating that statement.

The two of them were sitting at one of the tables in the main dining room of Lux, waiting for Mr. de Vries to arrive at the restaurant. Alex was a little bit sunburned from the photoshoot that morning, his nose and ears flushed red. He had called Leven as soon as he got done with the shoot, knowing he needed to get away from Isabelle as soon as he could before he did something that he couldn’t take back, no matter how much he wanted to.

“What’s up?” she asked, her voice coming in crackly over the phone. He was going down into the canyon, knew he was going to lose her any second.

“Are you at the restaurant?”

“Always,” she said, sighing, and he knew she wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest. “How come?”

“Can I meet with you? It’ll be easier to tell you in person.”

“I’ll be here. See you soon.”

He still hadn’t told Isabelle anything, hadn’t had a shift at Lux since the anniversary party and wanted to get his life figured out before he talked to her. He wanted to be worthy of her, and he wasn’t. Not yet. But he would be.

He also hadn’t told Leven anything yet, but that was because he was scared of her.

“Hey!” she said, standing up when she saw him. “Jesus Christ. How are you?”

Alex loved Leven more than almost anyone in the entire world; she had been his biggest sister since the day he moved to Los Angeles and she had taken him in at Lux. It didn’t matter what sort of problems he was having: at work or in his personal life or with money or jobs or dead ends; she was always there for him and she gave better advice than anyone else he knew. She knew every single sordid detail of his relationship with Tristan, and she had urged him many times to let go, to move in a different direction and try to find his happy again.

“You’ve heard,” he said, hugging her and sitting down across from her at the table where she had the schedule for the next couple of weeks spread out in front of her. She gathered all the papers up, stacking them together and pushing them off to the side, leaning back and crossing her legs.

“I sure did. Everyone did.”

“Great,” Alex groaned, dropping his head onto the table. “That’s just what I need.”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Leven said. “I think people are gonna be on your side.”

“I don’t want there to be sides. I just want to keep my job.”

“Well, he’s here.”

“Where?”

“In the office.” There was a long pause. Alex wasn’t ready to do this today, but he knew that he needed to. Over the past couple of days, he had gone through every possible scenario in his head, and it was killing him not knowing what was in his future. The last time he had barrelled forward without a plan was when he moved to Los Angeles, and he liked the stability that he had built for himself over the last couple of years. “You want me to ask him if he’s free to talk?”

Finally, Alex nodded. “Could you please?”

Leven pulled her phone out, tapping a couple of buttons and putting it up to her ear. She had a quick conversation, nodding like Mr. de Vries could see her, explaining the situation and listening to whatever he was saying. Alex held his breath, chewing on his bottom lip .”Okay,” she said after she hung up. “He’ll be right down.”

So now they were sitting here, Leven next to Alex, grabbing his leg underneath the table to get him to stop bouncing it. It was a nervous tic; he couldn’t help it. It drove Tristan crazy; it always had. She was constantly slapping her hand down on his knee, pressing down to get him to stop.

He jumped up when Mr. de Vries came around the corner, clearing his throat and wishing he was dressed up even a little bit. “Alexander,” he said, his voice booming around the restaurant. He reached forward when he got close enough, shaking Alex’s hand. That had to be a good sign, right?

“Mr. de Vries,” he said, his voice audibly shaky. As much as he was scared of Leven, he didn’t think there was anyone he was more afraid of than Tristan’s dad. He had had a whole lot of interactions with him over the last couple of years, been his guest at fancy restaurants and expensive clubs and at their vacation homes in the Hamptons and Aspen and Cabo. He owed him a lot.

“What can I do for you?” He sat down across from Alex and Leven, unbuttoning his jacket and smoothing it down. Alex sank back down into his seat.

“Well,” he started. “I don’t know how much you know, but…” Just spit it out, Alex. It’s already awkward enough, and you’re just making it worse. “Tristan and I are… no longer together.”

“I’d heard that, yes,” Mr. de Vries said, tipping his head to the side. It looked like a smile was tugging slightly at the corners of his mouth. If Alex was going to get fired, he wouldn’t be smiling. Or maybe he would. Maybe this was some sort of sadistic game.

Leven kicked him under the table, the toe of her boot connecting with his ankle. He tried not to visibly wince. “If you don’t want me working here anymore, I totally understand,” he blurted out. That was not the plan; he was going to lay out all of the reasons that he was a good bartender, that he was good for Lux, that he wanted to stay, but all of that flew right out of his head when actually faced with the boss.

There was a long silence, the seconds clicking away on the giant industrial clock on the wall behind Mr. de Vries. Alex started bouncing his leg again, Leven not even trying to stop him. He clenched his hands together under the table, squeezing his fingers as hard as he could to stop himself from hyperventilating.

He loved this job. He loved Lux. He had grown up here. His friends were here. And Isabelle was here. He didn’t think he could ever leave, especially not now.

Finally, Mr. de Vries spoke. “You know I would do anything for Tristan,” he said. Boy, was that the truth. Alex had seen him write checks for twenty thousand dollars for Tristan like it was nothing. The girl had her own private jet, a couple of cars that she never drove, and a trust fund that netted her more money per year than both of Alex’s parents combined. Beyond that, he knew that Tristan had her father wrapped around her finger, that he would fire Alex in a heartbeat if Tristan asked him to. Alex had heard rumors about the last boyfriend Tristan had had, that after she had broken up with him he had disappeared from the restaurant and was now working at some bar in the college district, making a whole lot less money than he had at Lux.

“I know,” Alex choked out.

Mr. de Vries tapped a gold-tipped pen on the table. “But you’re my best bartender by far,” he said, and Alex’s heart jumped. “So I would prefer it if you didn’t go anywhere.”

Wait, what? Alex shot a glance at Leven; her eyes were wide. They had both been expecting this to be the end. “I…” He bit his tongue to keep from saying something stupid. “What?”

“I love my daughter,” Mr. de Vries said like Alex wasn’t having an aneurysm in front of him. “But I also love this restaurant, and I need to do what’s best for it and my other employees. And I think that’s you.”

“I… uh…” Leven kicked him again. Boy, he was going to have some words with her when this was all over and done. “Okay.”

“Good.” Mr. de Vries stood up, checking his phone which was practically vibrating itself off the table. He frowned. “I need to take this.” Alex popped up from his chair, practically slamming his knee into the table in his haste. “Are we good here?”

“Yeah… yeah,” Alex stuttered, still not sure what had just happened. “Yes. We’re good.”

Once he had turned the corner to go back to the office, Leven let out a breath. “Holy shit,” she said, staring at Alex. “I thought for sure you were a goner.”

He sat down with a thud, his legs practically giving out underneath him. “Same.”

He put his head in his hands, trying to settle his breathing. He had really been prepared to get fired; he was one hundred percent convinced that was going to happen, had been ready to ask Leven to recommend him to some other bars in the area. It was like he had just escaped public execution or something.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Leven said, pulling the schedule back towards her. “This is good and all. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“But?”

“But…” She tapped her pencil on the schedule. Alex could see that the Fridays and Saturdays for the next couple of weeks were still wide open, no names scribbled in the tiny boxes. “Do you think you and Tristan will be fine working together?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said honestly. “I haven’t seen her since we broke up.” He winced at the look on Leven’s face. “It will be fine. I’m sure.”

“You know I can’t have the two of you fighting in my restaurant.”

“You think I want that any more than you do?” He pointed to Friday. “It’s fine, Lev. Put us on together. I’ll make sure it’s okay.”

Leven eyed him. “You promise?”

“I promise.” He nodded, and she wrote his name into the slot for the front bartender, eyeing him carefully as she did so. He had to make this work.

That was how he found himself at Isabelle’s apartment a few minutes later, having walked the few blocks from Lux to her front door. He pressed the buzzer, looking around like Tristan might catch him here. Alex wouldn’t put it past her to know exactly where Isabelle’s apartment was, especially after she accused him so many times of cheating on her. “It’s me,” he said when Isabelle answered, the lock clicking back immediately.

Alex took the steps two at a time up to her apartment, too much nervous energy still running through his veins to wait for the elevator. She opened the door before he even got there, like she had known exactly when he would turn up. “Hey,” she said, cocking her head to the side. She was even more sunburned than he was, her freckles popping out like crazy. “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She stood back, leaving enough room for him to squeeze by her into the apartment, brushing up against her as she closed the door behind him. “Are you okay?”

He hadn’t seen her apartment in the daylight before or with everything unpacked. His mind instantly flashed back to the last time he was here, remembering how he had pushed her up against the wall there and unhooked her bra over there and came up behind her while she was making breakfast there and…

He had to stop.

“I’m fine,” he said, turning towards her where she was knocking the top of a Corona off on the edge of the counter, handing it to him. “Thanks.”

“Come on,” she said, grabbing another beer and leading him towards the couch, sitting down and crossing her legs. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Isabelle,” he started.

She took a sip of her beer. “Alexander.”

“I just talked to Tristan’s dad.”

She practically spit her beer out, leaning forward and putting it on the coffee table in front of them. “Oh my God. Why didn’t you tell me the second you got here? What happened? Are you okay? Do you still have a job?”

“I do,” he said, and she let out a big sigh of relief.

“Thank God. I don’t know what I would do there without you.”

His heart felt light as air at her words, even though he hated what he was about to do. He wished for the thousandth time that things could be simpler, that he could just ask her to be his girlfriend, that he could touch her and hold her hand and kiss her whenever he wanted without fear of who might be looking or what people might say. He wished that his ex-girlfriend hadn’t terrorized everyone into submission, that he could have a new relationship without everything getting back to her.

But that wasn’t the world that they lived in. And he had made Leven a promise.

“I meant what I said to you,” he told Isabelle, willing himself to look her in the eye even though he was about to say some things that he didn’t believe in. “When we had that conversation at the anniversary party, I meant that. That night we had… it wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just a one night stand. Not for me anyways.”

“I know,” she said. “It wasn’t that to me either.”

Alex tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, failing miserably. “But I also meant it when I said it’s complicated. So we just…” He had to just say it. He couldn’t keep beating around the bush. “We have to lay low for a while.”

“What does that mean?”

He looked up at her, saw her eyes shining and didn’t know if it was because the sun was hitting them or if it was because of what he was saying to her. “We can’t be together right now.” There. He had said it.

If he had said something like that to Tristan, she would have had a million questions: why and what the fuck and how long then, but Isabelle wasn’t Tristan, something that he would have to remember so that he didn’t fuck this up in the long run.

“Okay,” Isabelle said, nodding, ripping the paper off her beer in a long strip. “I understand.”

Alex let out a big breath. “Really?”

“Really,” she said simply. “I’ll meet you where you are. Whenever you’re ready… I’ll be here.”


	7. we traded our boring lives for mtv story lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / we traded our boring lives for mtv story lines  
> / recently he said that she said that we said some shit that you wouldn't believe  
> / recently he said that she said that we said that he said some shit about me  
> drama by ajr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello. i did not even proof this and i have never been to cabo, so let's pretend this is an au where i actually know what i'm talking about.

Tristan should have had her father fire Alex. She knew that. She had done it before with no hesitation.

The difference between that time and now was that she hadn’t been in love with the last one. She absolutely was with Alex, even with all the fighting that the two of them did. She had always figured that that was just a part of them, that you took the good with the bad. Apparently, Alex didn’t feel the same way.

She didn’t know if she could suddenly go from seeing him every day, living with him, working with him, being around him all the time to not seeing him at all. She wanted to keep tabs on him. At least she could admit it.

What she hadn’t anticipated was the fact that she would have to watch Alex and Isabelle together and constantly wonder whether they were together, whether they were sleeping together or dating or if Alex really had been telling the truth. She still doubted that last one. And clearly she had not fully thought this through. 

“I can’t just get rid of him,” her father said to her before she even had the chance to say anything. “He’s my best bartender.”

“Daddy, I-”

“Lux would fall apart without him. You know that.”

“I know. I-”

“So don’t even think about asking me to do it, Tristan.”

“Daddy,” she said firmly, knowing that if she let him keep going she wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise. She was at his mansion in the canyon, her legs tucked underneath her on the couch in the living room, martini in her hand. “I wasn’t going to ask you to fire him.”

He turned around from where he was standing at the bar, bottles clinking in his hands. “What?”

“It’s fine,” Tristan said, shrugging nonchalantly and trying her best to appear like she wasn’t completely heartbroken. “I’m fine.”

Her father narrowed his eyes at her. Even though she had essentially been raised by the nanny after her mother left them, her father still knew her better than anyone. “For some reason, I find that hard to believe,” he said evenly.

She raised her eyebrows at him, forcing a smile onto her face. “Seriously. I’m fine.” 

It had been days since she had seen Alex; she had been staying at her father’s house for the time being, not sure of where he was or whether he had found a new place to live yet. But she knew he would be at the restaurant tonight, had texted Leven and asked her point blank. She had spent extra time putting her makeup on, dug out an older Lux dress that she knew was just a little bit too short on her. 

Jackie and Jen hadn’t been able to tell her much of anything, not that she had asked. She didn’t know how much she wanted to know, felt her heart speed up every time one of them even mentioned Alex in passing. 

“Okay,” her father said, eyeing her carefully. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” She checked her watch, setting her martini down on one of the marble coasters on the side table. “I better get going to the restaurant.”

“I’ll drive you,” he said firmly, and she knew that saying no wasn’t an option. “I need to check up on some things anyways.”

It was a hike from the canyon to Lux, and with every mile they went, Tristan’s stomach twisted itself even tighter into a knot until she thought she might actually throw up. She needed a stiff drink or an edible or a cigarette, something to calm her nerves. The few sips of the martini she had had at the house weren’t going to cut it. 

Sure enough, when she walked through the front doors of the restaurant and saw Alex at the bar, leaning over the sink, his head tipped away from the door, she knew she had about five seconds to make it to the bathroom. She bolted through the kitchen and into the server’s hallway, slamming the door of the tiny bathroom shut behind her and losing the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Fuck.

There was a knock on the door, and her first thought was that it was Alex before she came to her senses and realized he hadn’t even seen her come in, would have no way of knowing she was in here and likely wouldn’t care even if he did. “Tris?”

It was Jackie. Tristan flushed the toilet, wiping her mouth on a Kleenex and standing up shakily to unlock the door. “Hey,” she said, knowing she looked like shit. “What’s up?”

Jackie pushed her way into the bathroom, Jen close on her heels. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She needed a ginger ale immediately. Or maybe a gin and tonic. “My stomach is just a little upset, that’s all.”

Jackie and Jen weren’t falling for her bullshit. “It’s gonna be fine,” Jen said. “We’ve got your back. We already asked Leven to put you in the garden for tonight.”

Heat flared up Tristan’s neck. It was her restaurant, for fuck’s sake; why should she be the one delegated to the back while Alex got to hold court at the front bar? If only he wasn’t so goddamn good at his job. “Okay,” she said, trying to look grateful and not pissed off. She knew that her friends were making the right decision. “Thank you.”

“We got you,” Jackie repeated. “Jen is up front tonight but I’ll be in the back with you.”

When they made their way through the lounge to the garden, it took every bit of willpower Tristan had not to look in Alex’s direction, even though she desperately wanted to know if he was looking at her, if he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him, if he regretted what he had done. She didn’t know if Isabelle was working tonight, hadn’t seen her yet, knew she couldn’t bear watching the two of them together. 

It was going to be a long night. 

* * *

After the last server had been cut and they could finally take a breath, she shut herself in the supply closet. It had been a busy night; Leven said they had done around three hundred and fifty covers. Even so, Isabelle wasn’t really tired, adrenaline buzzing through her bones from being so close to Alex for so long.

They had had more close calls since the first night they met that she couldn’t even begin to remember all of them. It felt like every time she was around him, all of her nerves were fizzing with electricity, everything in her reaching out to touch him even though she knew that she shouldn’t, that she couldn’t. Tonight had been no exception.

He had always looked at her like she was made of gold, but ever since he had broken up with Tristan there was fire behind his eyes. A couple of times tonight she had caught him looking at her and biting his lip, flushing red when she caught him, and she felt a shiver go down her spine every time. She didn’t know what he was thinking about, but the memories of the photo shoot earlier that week were stuck on a loop in her brain. 

For some reason, what had happened at the shoot felt more intimate than anything else between them so far, even though they had already slept together, even though there had been dozens of people watching them. Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel his hands on her waist, his lips on her neck, his skin hot on top of hers like he was actually burning her. 

She wondered all the time if he was thinking about it too.

And now, shut in the supply closet after spending six hours just a few inches away from him, Isabelle was pretty sure it was the only thing on his mind, given the way his fingers tightened around her waist when he put his hands on her to indicate that he was sliding behind her or how goosebumps popped up on his arms when her breath hitched as he touched her. 

She was supposed to be getting more bar towels, but instead she was taking a breather, sitting down against the wall opposite the door. When she wasn’t thinking about Alex touching her, she had been remembering their conversation at her apartment, the look on his face when he told her that they couldn’t be together right now. She had expected it, but that didn’t mean it was any less disappointing. All she wanted was him. 

It was going to take a lot of self-control on her part.

Suddenly the door opened, Alex sliding into the supply closet and shutting it behind him, leaning his forehead against it. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. 

“What’s up?”

Alex jumped, hitting his elbow against the metal shelving on his right. He whipped around, his back hitting the door with a thud. “Jesus, Isabelle. What are you doing in here?”

She shrugged. “Just sitting for a second. You?”

“Hiding,” he said, sighing. “Budge over.” She moved to her left, squishing herself up against another set of shelving so that he could sit down next to her. His body was throwing heat at her, his entire leg pressed up against hers. There was a dull thud as he leaned his head back against the wall, a big sigh escaping his lips. 

“Hiding from…”

“Tris,” he said, and inexplicably Isabelle felt a lump form in her throat when he said her name. “She’s lurking around the kitchens, and I just don’t have it in me right now to have an argument.” He dropped his hand down onto Isabelle’s leg, warm even through the fabric of her pants, his fingers spanning across her entire thigh. She looked over at him, taking the time while his eyes were closed to really see him. “I have to move tomorrow,” he groaned.

“You found a place?”

“Yesterday.” His eyes popped open, and he glanced down at his hand on her leg. She thought for a second that he might move it, but he didn’t. “Are you gonna come see it?”

She swallowed. Alex was so close in the darkness that she could feel his face just inches away from hers as he leaned down towards her, practically brushing her cheek with his nose. “If you want me to,” she managed. 

Her heart started beating even faster, if that was possible, as she felt his fingers under her chin, nudging her face upwards toward his. She wanted to lean forward, close the gap between them, but she figured that would be the opposite of laying low, even if it was just the two of them alone in a dark supply closet at one in the morning. Isabelle’s master plan was to let him make the first move: when he was ready, when he was sure that it was the right time, she figured he would make that clear to her.

There was no question in her mind that he was about to kiss her, pulling back at the speed of light when the door slammed open. Isabelle’s first thought that it was Tristan standing there, but even though she couldn’t see the girl’s face, backlit by the bright light of the hallway, she knew it was Jackie because of how short she was. Jackie flipped the light on, Isabelle squinting after the darkness. 

“Okay, you two,” Jackie said, shutting the door behind her quickly. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Nothing,” they said quickly at the same time. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious at all. 

“You know Tris is out there,” she said to Alex.

“Yep,” he said, seemingly unbothered. “I know. Why do you think I’m sitting in a supply closet?”

“Come on, Iz,” Jackie said, ignoring him like she always did when he was sassing her. “I wanna talk to you.” 

Jackie reached out, grabbing her hand and hoisting her upright, dragging her out of the supply closet and leaving Alex behind. Isabelle was sure she was going to get a stern talking-to, or at least an inquisition about why she was sitting in a dark closet with Jackie’s best friend’s ex-boyfriend, but instead Jackie slung an arm over her shoulder, changing the subject completely.

“So you know my birthday is coming up,” she said. Jackie’s birthday was a big deal: it was at the beginning of November, around the time everyone started getting stir crazy, and Isabelle knew that every year they took a trip, usually somewhere Tristan’s father owned a house, which could be any one of a dozen places. 

“Yes,” Isabelle said. “The big two-six.”

“Don’t remind me,” Jackie said, groaning. They pushed through the kitchens into the lounge, the lights dimmed, chairs up on the tables. The restaurant was quiet, and Isabelle tried to stop herself from glancing around for Tristan, making sure she wasn’t lurking somewhere. “This year we’re going to Cabo.”

“Okay,” Isabelle said, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was certain that Jackie would tell her that she wasn’t invited. 

“So…” Jackie looked at her expectantly. “You’re coming, right?” 

Isabelle looked up at her, shocked. “You want me there?”

“Of course.” Jackie leaned on the bar, looking at Isabelle like she was crazy. Isabelle saw Tristan briefly, passing through on the far end of the lounge. She was headed right for the server’s hallway, where Isabelle assumed Alex was still hiding. “You have to come.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Isabelle said, tearing her eyes away from where Tristan had disappeared into the hallway. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good.” Jackie beamed. “Don’t worry. It won’t be weird.”

Isabelle knew Jackie was wrong, but she certainly wasn’t going to pass up a chance to party in Cabo. She would be crazy not to go.

Right?

* * *

“Come on, Ant-Man,” Alex grunted. He was holding one end of a couch, bracing his back against the bottom of the stairs. Dayo had the other end, balanced on the edge of a step, and he was glaring at Alex.

“Call me Ant-Man one more time,” he spit at Alex. “See what happens to you.”

“I swear to God, Dayo. If you don’t start moving, I’m gonna drop this and you’ll have to figure out how to get it up there yourself.”

“Shut up, Ludwig.” But he started moving, inching backwards up the stairs. Alex’s arms were shaking by the time they got to the top of the stairs, and he dropped the couch with a thud. 

“You made that much more complicated than it needed to be.”

Dayo threw a pillow at him, Alex grabbing it before it hit him in the face. “Was that the last of it?” Dayo asked.

“Should be.” They shoved the couch into the middle of the living room, collapsing onto the floor. It was unusually hot for October, even in Los Angeles, and they were both dripping sweat. Jack came trudging up the stairs a few minutes later, three boxes balanced in his arms which he immediately dropped upon seeing Alex and Dayo sprawled on their backs.

“Why am I always the only one working?”

“I didn’t see you carrying any furniture.”

“My knee is fucked up. You know that!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Alex had been getting worried about finding an apartment before they all went to Cabo. It had already been a couple of weeks since he had broken up with Tristan, and he had been avoiding the apartment as much as possible, only going back to pick up new clothes when he was sure that Tristan was at the restaurant or yoga or out with Jackie and Jen.

He hadn’t seen her at all, other than in passing at the restaurant last night, hadn’t spoken to her, somehow managing to avoid her and slip out the back door. He didn’t plan to have a conversation, even though they were all going to Cabo together.

That had been a fun conversation to have with Jackie, considering the fact that they were going to Tristan’s father’s house. “I’ll stay home,” he told her before she could even say anything, sitting on the balcony outside her apartment and smoking a cigarette. “I don’t want it to be a whole thing.”

She leaned over, pulled the cigarette from between his lips and sticking it in her mouth, taking a drag. “Don’t be dumb,” she said, choking back a cough. Jackie didn’t smoke much. “I want you there. You’re my friend.”

“Well, yeah. But so is Tris.”

“I can be friends with both of you,” Jackie said, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m so sick of this whole you have to choose game.”

“I’m not making you choose!” Alex said indignantly. 

“Yeah, well…” Jackie trailed off, handing the cigarette back to him, and she didn’t have to say the words for Alex to know that Tristan was probably putting pressure on her to make a decision. “It doesn’t matter,” she said firmly. “You’re coming with.”

“Okay,” he said, dropping the cigarette on the ground and stepping down on it to put it out. His mind immediately went to Isabelle; he knew Jackie had invited her, and he knew he was going to have to practice every ounce of self-control he had in him while they were there. They’d had a close call in the supply closet, and even though everything in him wanted to just give in to it, he knew it was way too soon. Tristan was on the warpath. He couldn’t shove Isabelle directly into it.

At least he had gotten the whole apartment situation taken care of, and with the last few boxes that Jack had brought up, he was officially all moved out of Tristan’s place. It was definitely a downgrade from her apartment: smaller kitchen, tiny bedroom, no balcony, but it was all his, and it was still just down the street from Lux and Jack’s place, in the same building Dayo and Jen lived in. He was also aware that it was in the same complex as Isabelle’s apartment, not that he had thought about that at all.

She was supposed to come see it tonight, but she had bailed, saying that she had to pick up an extra shift at the restaurant so that she would have enough money at Cabo. Alex would have offered to just give her money so that she wouldn’t have to work if he hadn’t been so strapped for cash himself. Also that was a little insane. He needed to get it together in a big way.

“I have to get to the restaurant,” Mark said from where he was laying on the floor in Alex’s new bedroom. He had collapsed there after helping Jack bring up the mattress, declaring that he was not going up those stairs one more time and they could all get fucked. 

“Same,” Dayo said, groaning. “We’re not like these two lucky motherfuckers who got the night off.”

“Sorry,” Alex said, shrugging. He tilted his head back, gauging how far away the refrigerator was and finally deciding that he just didn’t have the energy to get up and get water. “Someone make sure I’m up in the morning so I don’t miss the flight.”

“It’s a private jet,” Dayo said. “You can’t physically miss it.”

“You really think Tris won’t purposely leave me behind?”

“Oh. Good point.”

After another couple of minutes laying in front of the fan, Mark and Dayo finally pushed themselves up, leaving the apartment with a grumble to go to Dayo’s and change. Jack was still sprawled on the floor, Alex finally mustering the energy to get up. “You want water?”

“Please.”

He grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge, cracking one open and leaning over the sink, pouring it on the back of his neck before throwing the other to Jack. He looked around the apartment, realizing how much he still had to do. All of the furniture was where it was supposed to be but he had to put together bookshelves and a coffee table and his entertainment center, put all of his clothes and dishes and movies away, go grocery shopping, and pack for Cabo. He was going to have to prioritize. 

“So.” Jack rolled over onto his stomach, pushing himself up and collapsing back onto the couch. “How are things with you and Isabelle?”

Alex still hadn’t told anyone but Jack and Dayo what had happened, and as far as he knew Isabelle hadn’t told anyone at all. He was especially shocked that the guys had kept it a secret from Jackie and Jen, and he was just praying that they made it through Cabo without anyone blurting it out drunkenly in front of Tristan. 

“That’s not… It’s not anything,” he said lamely, stumbling over his words. Even though he knew he was right, it was just a technicality. What he felt for Isabelle wasn’t nothing; it was everything. 

“That’s not true,” Jack said. “If she is the reason you finally broke up with Tristan, that’s not nothing.” 

“Yeah.” Alex crunched up the empty water bottle in his hand. “But for now, we just have to keep our distance. It’s not fair to Tris.”

Jack snorted. “Nothing she’s done over the past couple years has been fair to you.” Alex looked up at him. “But sure,” he added quickly. “Whatever you think you have to do. I’ll keep on keeping it quiet.”

“Even in Cabo?”

“Especially in Cabo,” Jack said. “We need Tristan to get us back here, remember?”

Good point. 

* * *

After being in Cabo for all of two minutes, Isabelle had decided that it was totally worth spending a couple of hours on a plane with Tristan. Her father’s house was right on the ocean, and the water was an unreal shade of blue, the air balmy around them and the sky bright over their heads.

There had been a couple of cars waiting for them at the airport, big Escalades that they all piled into, driving along the winding roads of the coast to the beach house. Tristan kept calling it the beach house, but when they pulled into the long driveway, it was clear that it was more of a mansion, giant windows and white pillars and ceilings that soared above them.

“Holy shit,” she murmured as they all dropped their bags in the foyer, a sparkling chandelier dangling twenty feet up. 

“I know,” Alex said behind her, keeping his voice low. He grazed the back of her arm with his fingers, lightly enough for goosebumps to pop up on her skin. She had barely spoken to him at all; he had settled himself at the back of the plane with the boys, leaving Isabelle up front with the Coven. Her back was to him the entire time, and she had to grip onto the armrests of her seat to stop herself from turning around to look at him. “It’s ridiculous.”

Tristan was in her element; she loved bossing people around. “We have enough bedrooms for everyone,” she said, clapping her hands to get everyone to pay attention to her. “Second and third floors so take your pick.”

They all scattered, grabbing their bags and sprinting for one of the two staircases curving upwards to the second floor, framing the entryway. Alex, Jack, and Dayo got into a pushing match at the top of the stairs. “You two don’t get bigger rooms than me,” she heard Alex say. “That’s so unfair.”

“We have girlfriends and you don’t,” Jack shot back, and even from a staircase away, Isabelle could see Alex pouting at him.

“That’s just rude.”

Jackie, Jack, Dayo, and Jen ended up on the second floor, their rooms bracketing the master where Tristan was staying. Isabelle followed Alex up another set of stairs to the third floor, throwing her bags into the first room she saw. Alex stopped at the doorway. “Well… I guess it’s just the two of us up here.”

She was about to say something when Mark piped in. “Don’t forget about me,” he grumbled from behind Alex before continuing on down to the end of the hall. 

“What do you think?” Alex leaned on the door frame. “Can I stay with you?”

Yeah, right. Like they were going to sleep together in Tristan’s father’s house. Not if they wanted to make it back to Los Angeles alive.

“Get out of here,” she said, throwing a pillow at him. He just smirked at her, pushing away from the doorframe and dragging his bags down the hall. She heard him throw them into the room right next to hers before wandering off to Mark’s room. 

“Isabelle!” Jackie was screeching from downstairs. “Come down here!”

By the time she got down to the kitchen, marble counters gleaming and the ocean visible right outside the back doors, there was already a row of shots lined up on the island, a bottle of Patron open on the counter. Tristan was cutting up limes, handing them to Jackie as she worked. “Oh boy,” Isabelle said. “We’re really starting like this, huh?”

“We have to,” Jackie said. They’d had a lot of mimosas on the airplane, and her eyes were already glassy; Isabelle would bet good money that Jackie wouldn’t make it through the first night without blacking out or throwing up. Then again, it was her birthday. 

“Okay.” She sat down at one of the barstools, reaching for a shot. Without looking at her, Tristan handed her the salt shaker.

It had been an uncomfortable plane ride, to say the least. Tristan wasn’t speaking to her at all, not even in passing. Isabelle knew exactly what she thought; everyone did at this point. She was going to make it her mission to convince Tristan that nothing was going on between her and Alex, at least on this trip. Once they got back to Los Angeles, once Alex was ready, all bets were off. But until then, she would stay as far away from him as she could bear.

Apparently Alex was going to make that difficult for her; the boys came bounding down the stairs a few seconds later, and he dragged his hand across her back as he passed her. She kept her gaze trained on the countertop, not wanting to look up at Tristan, even as heat flooded her face. She was going to have to have a talk with him later, tell him to keep his hands to himself if they wanted to get through this weekend.

“Come on,” Jackie said, rapping her knuckles on the countertop impatiently. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” She licked a stripe onto the back of her hand, shaking salt over it and pushing the shaker across to Jackie once she was done with it. Jackie did the same to herself, passing the salt down the line and handing a lime wedge to everyone once they were done. 

Once everyone had salt, a shot, and a lime, Tristan picked up her shot glass, holding it over the middle of the counter. “Happy birthday, Jackie,” she said, beaming at her, and for a moment Isabelle was struck by how normal this all seemed, even though she was currently sitting in what to be a six million dollar house, owned by her one night stand’s ex-girlfriend’s father. Normal it was not, but she certainly wasn’t complaining.

She caught Alex’s eye across the circle, and he winked at her. She ducked her head down again, trying to concentrate on what Jack was saying about his girlfriend. But when she looked up again, leaning forward to clink her glass against everyone else’s, he was still staring at her, pinning her down with her gaze. He kept his eyes on her as he licked the salt off the back of his hand, took his shot, and bit down on the lime, until she was sure that everyone else could feel whatever was happening between them too.

Thankfully, no one seemed to notice, everyone else deep in an argument about what they were going to do on their first night in Mexico. 

“We can drink at the house or we can go out,” Tristan said authoritatively. “It’s Jackie’s birthday, so she should decide.”

Jackie nodded decisively. “We’re going out.” 

Thank God, Isabelle thought. It would be a whole lot easier to avoid Alex at the club than it would be with just the eight of them in this house.

Or at least… that’s what she thought.


	8. have you ever wondered if you loved me harder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / but i still wish we could go back to where we started  
> / when you left your t-shirt at my old apartment  
> / have you ever wondered if you loved me harder  
> / where we'd be, where we'd be now  
> so close by notd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i.......... have nothing to say for myself. 
> 
> i have been incredibly blessed with new fic lately which inspired the majority of this, so please go read "the night ain't getting younger" by emily (taylorswift on ao3) and "pinky promise" and "who we are" by gracie (amazingraceful on ao3). they are to blame for the mess that is this chapter.

It was like deja vu.

They made it out to El Squid Roe around eleven o’clock, all of them exhausted from traveling, but ready to party nonetheless. Jackie was well on her way to passing out, having done more shots at the house than she probably should have. Jack had his arm anchored around their waist as they went through the front doors, the club spreading out around them.

It was chaos. The whole place was bathed in dancing red, blue, and purple lights, swinging around the room. It was making Isabelle feel a little dizzy already, tequila flooding her veins and making her head swim. The place was packed, people shoulder to shoulder on the dance floor and up on the balconies. Dance music pounded through the floor, making her bones feel like they were vibrating.

Thankfully Tristan had an in with the owners of the club; her father had done business with them in the past, and they had a table waiting for them upstairs on one of the balconies. There were bottles waiting for them there, tequila and vodka and rum balanced on the table with glasses and limes and salt. Isabelle knew that the last thing any of them needed was more alcohol; she also knew that that wasn’t going to stop any of them, Jackie or the boys least of all.

Sure enough, the second they got to the table Mark was pouring shots, handing them out. Isabelle took a couple, passing the rest off to Dayo, who could hold his alcohol better than any of them. She kept a close eye on Jackie, knowing that at some point she would have to be cut off. It didn’t take long before she was making out with Jack at the table like none of the rest of them were there. Tristan and Jen were snickering, both of them trying to hold back full blown laughs.

Finally Tristan stood up. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Mark’s hand. “Let’s go dance.” The two of them disappeared down the stairs, Jen and Dayo following close behind.

“Wait!” Isabelle called after them, but it was too loud for them to hear her. Well then. She turned back to the table where Alex was resting his chin on his hands, grinning at her.

“Looks like it’s just the two of us,” he said, a smirk on his face.

“And them,” Isabelle said, gesturing to Jackie and Jack. 

Alex made a face. “They don’t count right now.” He looked over at them, punching Jack in the arm. “Hey! Cut it out!”

Jack pulled away from Jackie, glaring at Alex. “Just because you’re not getting any doesn’t mean that I can’t.”

“Then go back to the house,” Alex said. “If you get arrested in Mexico for public indecency, I guarantee Tris leaves you here.”

Jack shrugged. “Then so be it.”

“Ridiculous,” Alex muttered under his breath as Jack turned back to Jackie. “Wanna take bets on how long they stay out?”

“Another hour tops,” Isabelle said. 

“I give it thirty minutes.”

“You’re on.”

Isabelle grabbed a bottle of Patron, pulling it towards her with a shot glass just to give herself something to do with her hands. She couldn’t take Alex sitting there looking at her like that. She threw a shot back, letting it burn down her throat and shivering as it hit her stomach. When she looked back at Alex, he still had his eyes locked on her. “Cut it out,” she hissed.

“Cut what out?” he asked innocently. “I’m just sitting here.”

“I know what you’re thinking about.”

“Oh? What’s that?” He smirked at her again. She was going to kill him. He didn’t give her a chance to answer him thankfully; she wasn’t sure what she could say without making things even more tense. “I’m gonna go have a smoke,” he said, standing up and patting his back pocket to make sure his cigarettes were in there. “Wanna come?”

“No.” She glared at him, wanting that more than anything and willing herself to stay in her seat.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, cutting his eyes back to Jack and Jackie. “Have fun with them. I’ll be back in a sec.”

“I won’t be waiting,” she grumbled.

“We’ll see.” He winked at her as he walked away, saying something to the bouncer at the side door before slipping out of it, already pulling a cigarette out of his pocket.

“Uh oh,” Jackie said, pulling back from Jack quickly and dislodging his hand from underneath her shirt. “Bathroom.”

“I’ll take her,” Isabelle said to Jack quickly, standing up and grabbing Jackie’s arm. Jackie was putting all of her weight on her as they stumbled to the bathroom, thankfully just around the corner; Isabelle wasn’t sure they would have made it otherwise. It was dark in there, the only light coming from a few bulbs hanging from the ceiling. 

Jackie practically fell into a stall, Isabelle stumbling behind her to try to keep her upright. “I’m fine,” Jackie slurred, the fact that she started throwing up a few seconds later negating her words completely. Isabelle knelt down next to her, trying to keep from touching anything around her, holding Jackie’s hair out of the way. 

Jackie kept apologizing over and over in between rounds of getting sick. “It’s fine,” Isabelle told her every time, patting her back. “It’s not your birthday if you don’t throw up at least once, right?”

“Right,” Jackie said weakly, finally leaning back and reaching over to flush the toilet. “Okay. I think that was it.”

Isabelle didn’t know how that tiny girl had anything left in her, leading her gingerly back to the table and grabbing a bottle of water from a passing shot girl on the way. “Vomit hour?” Jack asked once they got back.

“Yep.”

“Well, that was inevitable, I suppose.” Jack hadn’t been drinking at all, waiting for this exact moment when he would have to maneuver his girlfriend back to the beach house on his own. “I’d better get her out of here.”

“Do you want me to come?” Isabelle asked. Please say yes, she thought, knowing Alex would be back at any moment. There was no way in hell she trusted herself to be alone with him, not with this much alcohol in her system, not when even standing next to him felt like her own personal drug. 

“No, no,” Jack said quickly. “You stay. It’s still early.” He looked around. “Do you want me to wait for Alex to get back?”

She was about to say yes, but took one look at Jackie, who was swaying on the spot, her eyelids heavy, and quickly changed her mind. “You better go,” she said. “We’ll see you back there.”

And just like that, she was by herself, sitting down in the booth and grabbing a beer from the ice bucket next to the table, popping the top off and taking a big drink. The last thing she needed right now was more alcohol but she had been so on edge all day that it was a relief to just relax for a second. 

It really did only last for a second.

“Where’d they go?” she heard Alex say, and she jerked her head up, knocking her beer bottle over in the process. Alex reached in quickly, picking it up and grabbing some napkins to dump on top of the mess. “God, you’re jumpy.”

“They, uh…” Isabelle rubbed the back of her neck, a kink forming there from how tense she had been all day. “They went home.”

Alex sat down, and for once the smirk was gone from his face. “Seriously, Isabelle. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing is going on,” she said quickly. “What are you talking about?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “I’ve worked behind a tiny bar with you for forty hours a week for the last six months. I know when something is stressing you out.”

And that was the problem between them. Alex knew her really well, and it wasn’t just because they spent so much time together or because she had told him all of her dirty little secrets or because he was essentially her best friend at this point, not just at the restaurant, but in life in general. It was because he knew her, really knew her in a way that no one really had before.

She didn’t know why that was, but ever since the second he had sat down next to her at Nautica, she had felt connected to him. She hadn’t ever given reincarnation much thought before, but the way she felt about Alex, even from the start, made her convinced that the two of them had been in love in a different life. And maybe that life had been a little less complicated than this one; maybe he hadn’t had a girlfriend when met her or maybe they hadn’t slept together right away.

But honestly… Isabelle wouldn’t trade this in for the entire world.

“Come on,” Alex said, breaking her out of her thoughts. He glanced around, looking for Tristan, before grabbing her arm. 

“Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer, just pulled her towards the door he had just come back from. They ended up on a balcony that was blessedly empty, a view overlooking the streets lit up by neon, mountains just barely visible in the distance. “Okay,” he said, turning to her. “Talk.”

She sank down onto an overstuffed couch, pulling her knees up to her chest. Alex sat down next to her, his eyes piercing right through her. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Isabelle felt like she had completely sobered up. 

“Do I look dumb to you?”

Isabelle just raised an eyebrow at him, and he laughed, hitting her lightly in the shin. “Come on.”

Okay. Here goes. “I can’t be alone around you,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry. I just… I can’t.” 

She studied his face carefully, watching to see if his thoughts would come through at all, but they didn’t. He just tipped his head to the side, biting his bottom lip and nodding. “Okay.” Maybe that would be the end of it. Maybe now she could just relax. “Why?”

Or maybe not. Well, she thought, maybe if she just told him the reason they could get back to normal. “I…” She felt heat flush over her face, her hands shaking, and she shoved them underneath her thighs to stop him from noticing. 

“Spit it out, Iz.”

“I just can’t be around you and not want to be with you,” she blurted out. “And not just like I want to be your girlfriend, which I do, but…” She looked down, not wanting to meet his eyes. “It’s hard to be around you because I want to be able to kiss you and touch you and I… can’t. I know you’re not ready and I’m totally… I totally understand that, I’m not trying to convince you otherwise, but I just need space. I need space from you because you’re all I can think about.”

It felt like Alex was quiet for a hundred years. She didn’t breathe, didn’t move a single muscle, waiting for him to say something. He shifted, resting his arm on the back of the couch. “So…” He paused again and she was actually going to kill him. “You wanna hook up?”

Yep. He was a dead man. “Is that really all you got from that?”

A big smile spread over his face. “I am ready,” he said decisively, ignoring her question completely. “I don’t want you to think I’m not. I am.”

“Alex, no, I-”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “I’ll tell Tristan on Monday, first thing. She’s gotta hear it from me, you know? But I’m ready. I’ve been ready.”

If Isabelle’s heart hadn’t stopped already, it certainly had now. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. Now that she knew where things stood, now that she had a timeline to hold onto, she could just let go and have fun this weekend. “So we’ll just wait till Monday.”

She stood up, brushing off the back of her legs. The door leading back into the club was propped open with a concrete block, the music and lights and conversations filtering out onto the balcony, and even though they were surrounded by hundreds of people it felt like it was just the two of them out there. She had just turned to go back into the club when Alex grabbed her wrist, and when she turned around he was standing there behind her, his hands falling on her waist, and he was so close that she could smell cigarette smoke and cologne and something fresh and clean, the way he always smelled.

“That’s not what I meant, Isabelle,” he said, his voice low, and she fought the urge to look over her shoulder and make sure no one was watching them. His eyes were locked on hers. 

“Okay,” she said, practically choking the words out. “What did you mean then?”

“I think we should go back to the house,” he said firmly. “Just you and me. Everyone else will be here for another couple of hours at least.”

“Jackie and Jack-”

“Come on, Iz,” he said, tightening his hands on her waist, her breath catching in her throat. “I’m not strong enough to stay away from you. I never have been, so let’s just stop trying. I need to stop pretending you’re not the one I think about every second of every day.”

“Okay,” Isabelle answered, pushing away the voice in her head that was telling her it was too dangerous, that they just had to wait a couple more days. “Let’s go.”

It was only a five minute cab ride back to the house, speeding out of the city and along the coast, the bright lights of the beach house rising up quickly in the distance. Isabelle was itching to reach over and touch him, thought maybe Alex would make a move now that they were alone, but instead he just looked over at her, his face dark, and slid his hand under hers on the seat of the cab, lacing his fingers through hers.

As they pulled up the house, she could feel his heart beating in her palm, and the second the car came to a stop he was pulling her out, pushing her onto the pavement ahead of him and steadying her with his arm around her waist. The alcohol had long since left her system, and she was glad that she had sobered up quickly because she didn’t want to miss one single second of this.

She was expecting Alex to go up to the third floor immediately, to pull her up to one of the bedrooms, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed open the front door quietly, the house lit up bright but completely quiet. “Jack?” he called upwards, and when she listened hard she could hear the faint sound of music coming from the second floor.

Alex slapped his hand down on the light switches, turning them off one by one until the house was dark around them. “Come on,” he said softly, grabbing Isabelle’s hand again, almost whispering as he pulled her through the house and out the back door onto the sand of the beach.

“Alex,” she said, practically stumbling in her haste to keep up with him. “What are we doing?”

“We can’t come all the way to Mexico and not go in the water,” he said. 

“Wait, just let me go change-”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Live a little, Isabelle.” She stopped, leaning down to pull her heels off before she fell on her face in the sand. Alex stopped too, waiting for her, and she took a second to close her eyes, felt the cool breeze coming off of the ocean wash over her and heard the lap of the waves against the sand.

“Okay.” She took another couple of seconds to pull her shirt off and kick her shorts down. She dropped her shoes on the sand. “Race you.” And she took off.

Alex had been in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head, giving her a couple of seconds head start, but he caught up to her at the edge of the water, tackling her into a wave. She came up sputtering, looking around for Alex, but he was already diving under the next wave, coming up in the calmer water. She followed, swimming out to him until she couldn’t touch the sand anymore, treading water. Alex was floating on his back, reaching out for her hand. “Look,” he said, pointing up and sending water flying everywhere.

He grabbed onto her hand, holding her steady as she looked up. Living in Los Angeles meant that they almost never saw stars, not between the city lights and the fact that it never really got dark and the smog that blanketed the city. But out here in the ocean off the coast of Mexico, the sky was lit up above them. There were more stars in one small section than Isabelle thought she had ever seen in her entire life.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Alex asked, his tone almost reverent. 

“Yeah.” Isabelle looked over at him. “Really something.”

He kicked out, tipping himself back upright. When he stood, he could just barely touch the sand, and it seemed like he realized quickly that Isabelle couldn’t at all. “Hey,” he said, reaching out and locking his arms around her waist, pulling her up against him. Even though the air was warm around them, she felt goosebumps pop up on the back of her neck, her bare skin pressed against his. 

She hooked her legs around him, feeling the muscles of his stomach tighten against her. “Hey.”

“You know what?” he asked her, pushing her hair out of her face so that it fell in waves down her back, dripping wet and thick with salt water. If he didn’t kiss her soon, she genuinely thought that she might jump out of her skin.

“What’s that?”

“I’m really glad that I’m here with you.” Alex shifted, the water hitting gently against them as he wrapped one arm tighter around her, slipping his hand under her hair. He was so close to her that she could see every drop of water hanging onto his eyelashes even in the dark.

“You wouldn’t change anything?” she whispered.

“I would’ve met you sooner. I would’ve met you years ago. I wouldn’t have made things so complicated. You deserve better than this. You deserve better than what I’ve been able to give you.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t change this. Not for a second.”

“Really? Even with all the… drama?”

“That just makes it exciting, doesn’t it?”

Alex grinned, bumping her cheek with nose. “Yeah,” he breathed, stealing the air right out of her mouth. “A little excitement never hurt anyone.”

And finally he kissed her, closed the tiny gap between them, and she felt herself melting against him. It had been months since she had felt him like this, but it was everything that she had remembered it to be. “Holy shit,” he mumbled into her mouth. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” She knotted her hands in his hair, tugging slightly, and he groaned, pulling back.

His eyes were glassy, and she held onto him even tighter, chasing after him and kissing him again. “Worth the wait?” she asked him.

“Fuck,” he said, breathing hard. “Fuck, yeah.”

Isabelle had thought about this moment a lot, held it in the back of her mind all the nights that they were at Lux together. She never would have imagined that it would be happening in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Mexico, the stars gleaming above them and the world completely silent. He smoothed his hand over her skin, down her spine, and she shivered involuntarily. 

“Bed,” he said, and she didn’t know if he was mistaking the fact that she was shaking for cold or if he really wanted this as much as she did.

“Yes,” she said, her voice rough. “Now.”

Somehow they made it out of the water, grabbing their clothes off the sand and letting themselves quietly back into the house, making damn sure that Jackie and Jack were sleeping. Alex paused outside their door on the second floor, pressing his ear to it. “Anything?” Isabelle whispered, and he shook his head.

“No. They’re out.”

She took off up the stairs, Alex taking them two at a time behind her to catch up, and they barely made it into his room before he was back on her, pushing her back towards the bed and falling on top of her, barely managing to catch himself on his elbows. Isabelle was acutely aware of the fact that they were both only in their underwear, her skin on fire where he was touching her. 

“Shit,” he said, kicking a blanket out of the way. “Sorry.”

“Stop talking,” Isabelle said, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him down towards her. He gripped her waist as he kissed her, slotting his leg in between hers and carefully lowering himself down on top of her, his fingers spanning the entire length of her side. 

Alex pulled away, smirking at her as he trailed his lips down her neck and over the dip in her throat, and she knotted her hands in his hair, tipping her head back and biting her lip, concentrating on the ocean just visible out the window so she didn’t lose it completely. “Or what?” Alex said, and she could feel the curve of his smile against his skin. “What are you going to do to me, Isabelle?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she said, her words huffing out in a gasp as she felt the scratch of his beard on her thigh. 

Alex popped his head up from in between her legs, grinning at her. “Bring it on, Iz.” Before she could say anything, he was back up next to her, working on her neck again, and she knew in the back of her mind that she should tell him to stop so that she didn’t have a bruise there tomorrow morning, but there was no part of her that could stop him at this point. A freight train couldn’t stop him. She felt a whine build up in the back of her throat as he pushed his leg between hers, and she arched her back, trying to push up against him.

God, she wanted him.

Isabelle shifted against him carefully, and he made a noise in his throat, pulling back to look at her. There was a gleam in his eye that she hadn’t seen before, not even the last time they had done this, although that had been different, faster and rougher as they fumbled through it in the way that strangers did. They weren’t strangers anymore. 

“What are you thinking?” His tone was almost conversational as he slipped his hand underneath her back, unhooking her bra and letting it fall to the floor.

“I…” She tried to focus as he pushed his boxers down his hips, pulling her underwear down with them as he shifted to the side. She kept her eyes trained on his as he settled himself back between her legs. “I don’t…”

“Speechless, huh?” he whispered as he rocked against her, a whine coming out of the back of her throat. 

His hands floated over her, impossibly light for someone so big, and she could feel the heat in her stomach building. She was just reaching between them when he froze. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have a condom,” he mumbled, squishing up his face at her. “I didn’t think… I didn’t want to assume…”

“It’s fine,” Isabelle said breathlessly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

And that was all it took, Alex’s eyes darkening as he looked at her. He bit down on her shoulder as he pushed into her, and she swore, knowing that this was supposed to be a secret, knowing that Jackie and Jack were right below them, but completely unable to help herself. 

“Fuck,” Alex panted, his hips stuttering against hers. “Fuck, you feel good, Iz.”

She held onto him tight, tracing the hard lines of muscle in his arms and down his back. She was just starting to come apart, her legs shaking, and he gripped onto her waist even tighter with one hand, bringing the other up to her face and nudging her chin up towards him.

In retrospect, they should have known better. But everything had been building up for so long, all of the hours that they spent behind the bar together, every time he brushed up against her as he passed behind her, every night she fell asleep thinking about him, about that first night together. She remembered how he looked when he came up and sat down next to her at Nautica, how different things might have been if he hadn’t chosen that night or that bar or that seat. She remembered the way her heart had stopped when she had seen him sitting in the back booth of Lux, Tristan draped across him. She remembered going home after that first meeting, telling herself that she was an idiot, that she should have known better, that he was just as bad as all of the guys she had dated in the past. She remembered thinking that even though he had to be an asshole for cheating on his girlfriend like that, she couldn’t wait to see him again, and she remembered how it felt like an electric shock going through her veins when he told her that they had been broken up. And she remembered being so close to him in the back hallway at Bootsy, seeing the look on his face when he told her that he cared about her every time she closed her eyes.

The two of them had had no chance, and she knew in the back of her mind that this was where they were going to end up.

“Isabelle, I-”

But Alex didn’t get to finish his sentence, because at that exact moment, the door to his bedroom burst open and the light snapped on. Isabelle squinted against the brightness, Alex freezing, his eyes wide as he looked down at her.

“What the fuck,” said Tristan slowly, “is going on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> taking a short hiatus from this to write gracie's birthday fic which will be up on june first, and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming!


	9. i want you to fuck up my nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / you set fire to my world, couldn't handle the heat  
> / now i'm sleeping alone and i'm starting to freeze  
> / baby, come bring me help, let it rain over me  
> / baby, come back to me  
> / i want you to ruin my life, i want you to fuck up my nights  
> ruin my life by zara larsson

When Alex and Tristan got into it, they really got into it.

But all the fights that they had gotten into up until this point were nothing compared to the one currently going on at the beach house.

When Tristan burst into Alex’s room, Isabelle thought that she was seeing things or that she was still drunk, but Alex pulled back quickly, throwing the blanket over her before she had even really figured out what was going on. “Tristan,” he growled, grabbing a pillow to cover himself. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Isabelle was frozen. She couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything, could barely even breathe, and thankfully Alex took control of the situation because she was being entirely useless. He leaned down, grabbing a pair of sweatpants off the floor. “Get the fuck out!” he yelled at Tristan, but she was also drunk and yelling and the situation was devolving into a shitshow faster than Isabelle could process it. Finally, Alex just pulled his pants on, tying them on and pushing past Tristan out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind them. 

She could hear Tristan screaming in the hallway and down the stairs, finally felt the blood come back into her limbs, and she jumped up, rooting around on the floor for one of Alex’s shirts so that she could at least make it to her room and put clothes on. She inched down the hallway, looking over the balcony and making sure that Tristan wasn’t lurking, but she could hear them screaming at each other in the kitchen. 

“-in my fucking house-”

“-you can’t just bust up into my room-”

“-it’s my fucking house!”

As she looked over the balcony, she could see Jackie and Jack open their door, looking at each other, confused, and she quickly darted into her room and closed the door, pulling on clothes as quickly as she could and sitting down on the bed, trying to catch her breath. She could hear people pounding up the stairs, and a few seconds later Jackie burst into her room, Jack on her heels.

“Do you hear that?” Jackie said breathlessly. “What the hell is going on?”

Isabelle looked down, twisting her hands in her lap. She hadn’t told Jackie anything, hadn’t told anyone anything. And now everything was blowing up right in front of her. 

“Oh my God,” Jack said, his voice low. “Oh my God, Isabelle. You didn’t.”

Her heart stopped. “What are you talking about?”

“You and Alex…” he said slowly. “I know… I know about the two of you. I…”

“What?” Jackie shrieked. “What the fuck are you talking about? Isabelle, what the fuck is he talking about?”

She closed her eyes. Just ten minutes ago, it had just been her and Alex. Just ten minutes ago, they’d had a plan. Just ten minutes ago, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. And now Tristan and Alex were fighting, and Jackie was going to find out that Isabelle had essentially been lying to her for months, and apparently Jack knew something, although who knew what at this point.

The door burst open again, Dayo muscling his way into the room and slamming it shut behind him, sinking down to the floor with his back up against the door, keeping it closed. “Oh my God, Isabelle,” he said, breathless. “You slept with Alex again?”

Jackie whipped back towards her, her eyes wide. “What?” she screamed.

“Jackie, you have got to calm down,” Jack hissed, looking behind him nervously. They were all scared of Tristan.

“I won’t,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “Not until somebody tells me what the fuck is going on.”

“Okay, fine!” Isabelle reached out, grabbing her arm and pulling her down onto the bed beside her, praying that she shut up for thirty seconds. “Alex and I hooked up months ago, back before I started working at Lux. They… Alex and Tristan… they were on a break and I met him in a bar. It was just a coincidence…” She trailed off, knowing that no matter how she spun this story, she didn’t come out smelling like roses. “Anyways, that was the only time it happened. Until tonight.”

Jackie’s jaw had dropped somewhere in the middle of her story, and she turned back to Jack and Dayo. “You two knew about this?”

There was some mumbling and some shuffling of feet and some avoided eye contact, but eventually the two of them copped to the fact that Alex had told them a long time ago, back when he was still with Tristan. “You didn’t tell me,” Jackie said, turning to Isabelle, hurt painting her expression.

“I didn’t know we were telling people,” Isabelle said, shooting a look at Jack and Dayo. “It was just… a one time thing.”

“But you have real feelings.”

There was no denying it now. “Yes. I always have.”

Jackie considered this for a few moments. Isabelle waited for her to say something, barely able to breathe. She could still her Tristan and Alex screaming at each other, even from three floors up, although their words were so muffled by the floors between them and the closed door that she couldn’t understand what they were saying. 

Before Jackie could say anything, there was a tentative knock on the door, and Dayo scooted forward, reaching up and behind him to twist the knob. Mark was standing there, looking terrified, and he quickly slipped into the room once he saw everyone sitting there. “It’s a war zone out there,” he whispered. Before the door shut behind him, Isabelle heard Alex yell, “you aren’t in charge of me anymore!”

“Okay, listen,” Jackie said, clapping her hands. She had always been the Monica of the group, the one most likely to take charge, and Isabelle was beyond grateful that she was stepping up right now, because Isabelle herself had no idea what the hell to do or how to handle the shitshow that was raging on downstairs. “We need to get them away from each other, and we need to set up other flights back to Los Angeles as soon as possible because there’s no way in hell she’s gonna let anyone fly back with her.” Jack rolled his eyes at Dayo, and Jackie glared at him. “Isabelle.” Jackie turned towards her, and she knew without either of them having to say anything that she was forgiven, that Jackie still had questions but there would be plenty of time later to talk. “Stay as far away from that kitchen as possible until we can get her out of there.”

They found new plane tickets, booking them on Jackie’s emergency credit card and promising to Venmo her when they got back in the States, and then the four of them disappeared, leaving Isabelle alone in her room, sitting on the bed, knees pulled up to her chest, staring out at the ocean and wondering how the hell their vacation had ended up like this.

* * *

Alex was so furious he was actually seeing red. He had thought that was just an expression until Tristan burst into his room and started screaming at him, and now his vision was blurring around the edges, his skin hot and his heart racing and his blood pressure through the roof.

She thought she owned him. She always had. It wasn’t enough that it was her apartment, her father’s restaurant, her beach house in Cabo; she had to constantly rub it in his face that she had more money and power and influence than he did. He had put up with it for years, but if there was anything he knew now it was that he would go to war for Isabelle, no matter what the consequences happened to be.

Tristan was drunk and pissed off, and he knew his first order of business was getting her as far away from Isabelle as possible. Thankfully, once he had put pants on and pushed past her, leaving Isabelle in bed behind them, she had followed him to the kitchen, screaming the entire way about how it was her house and how disrespectful he was and how she had been right the entire time and he was just a motherfucking liar.

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said, turning towards her and finally snapping when they made it down to the first floor. “I never fucking lied to you!”

“Oh really?” She whipped towards him, planting her hand on her hip and giving him that face that he always hated, the one that meant that she was smarter than him. “So it’s just a coincidence that you’re fucking the girl I thought you were cheating on me with?”

He winced. “We’re not fucking,” he said, knowing that they had probably woken up the entire house at this point, that everyone was about to know all of his personal business. He should have taken care of this a long time ago. He should have come clean before they came here. He should have stayed home with Isabelle, enjoying the peace and quiet while they still could. He should have locked the goddamn door.

Should have, would have, could have.

“Then what the fuck is it, Alexander?”

He sighed deeply. “We slept together once-”

Tristan didn’t give him a chance to finish, and he knew it didn’t matter what he said at this point. She was pissed, and there was no explaining his way out of it. 

“Yeah, in my fucking house!”

Alex knew he was raising his voice, that he was yelling now, but he couldn’t help himself. “You can’t just bust up into my room-”

“It’s my fucking house!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Tris.” Alex was fully aware that he had fucked up. He should have stuck to Isabelle’s plan, should have waited until they got back to Los Angeles on Monday and talked to Tristan like a normal, well-functioning adult. But it was some combination of tequila and ocean air and Isabelle that made him totally unable to wait for even one more second to touch her.

“You better find your own way home because I’m sure not taking you back.”

“No shit, Tris.” He rolled his eyes at her, knowing that would set her off.

It did. She started screaming again.

Alex sat down at the counter, letting her scream and wishing like hell that he was with Isabelle anywhere but here. He wondered if she was okay, if she was totally traumatized, if she still wanted to be with him despite the massive amount of baggage he was bringing to the table. In a different situation, he didn’t know if he would be able to, but he would move mountains for her. That much he knew. 

It was only a couple of minutes later when Jackie and Jack burst into the kitchen, Dayo and Mark hot on their heels, but he was shocked it took them that long. Jackie would not be Jackie if she wasn’t the one constantly trying to break up the drama and get everyone to just love each other. Jen was nowhere to be seen, but that was probably better for Alex.

“Okay, Tris,” Jackie said, grabbing her arm and dragging her away from Alex and out onto the patio. “Come on. Give it up.”

He could hear Tristan still yelling when Jackie shut the sliding glass doors behind her, her voice carrying through the glass and breaking up the stillness of the night air outside. “How is Iz?” Alex asked, his voice rough as he looked up at the boys. 

“She’s okay,” Jack said. “She’s packing.”

“What?” Alex snapped, standing up so quickly that the bar stool tipped over, hitting the floor with a crash. He didn’t stop to pick it up, didn’t even stop to think about it, pushing past his friends and taking the stairs two or three at a time.

When he flew through the door of Isabelle’s room, sweating and out of breath, he found her sitting cross legged on the floor, folding things into her suitcase. He shut the door behind her, remembering to lock it this time, although that was definitely a too little too late situation, and he dropped to the floor across from her.

“Hey,” she said, not making eye contact with him, and he suddenly viscerally hated Tristan. “Are you okay?”

“Who gives a fuck about me?” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She threw a t-shirt into her suitcase, biting her lip. He had seen her stressed; he had seen her frustrated; he had seen her overwhelmed. But whatever this was, he hadn’t seen it before, and he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if he should reach out and comfort her or if he should just leave her be. This was completely new territory for him. “That was…”

“A lot, I know,” he said hurriedly. He would say anything to make her feel better, to assure her that he would take care of things. “I’m so fucking sorry. It’s completely my fault.”

“It’s not.” Isabelle still wasn’t looking at him.

“It is. My ex-girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend’s house. My dumb ass that didn’t lock the door.” He lowered his voice like Tristan might still be listening; honestly he wouldn’t put it past her. “I wouldn’t take any of it back. Not one second of it, Isabelle.”

Finally - finally - she looked up at him. Her eyes were bright, and it didn’t know if it was because she was trying to hold back tears. “Really?”

“Not one second.”

“We could lose our jobs,” she said, the words like needles in his heart. 

“I don’t care,” he said quickly, realizing as he said the words how true they were. “I don’t care at all. I spent so long being unhappy, and I’m not going to do that to myself anymore.”

With that, she crawled across her suitcase, pushing it to the side and knotting her hands in his hair, and she kissed him, pulling the breath right out of his lungs. He itched to touch her, to push her back onto the bed and feel her underneath him, but he didn’t, managing to restrain himself, his hands lightly falling at her waist. He let her kiss him for a few minutes before he pulled back, trying to focus on her like she was the only person in the world. “So does this mean you want to be with me too?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Unequivocally.” It felt like his heart took a breath, relaxing for a moment, but then she continued. “It’s just… I think we need to stay apart from each other for a little while.”

“What?”

“Just at work and stuff. We need to let this blow over.”

Isabelle was probably right. Alex knew that. But he didn’t want her to be right. He didn’t want to stay away from her. He didn’t want them to be apart. He had just gotten her, for Christ’s sake. He was not a strong enough man to just walk away from that now. 

But if that’s what she wanted, at least for now, then he would try.

“Yeah.” Alex sat back, his hands still gripping her waist, and she followed him, swinging a leg over his lap and resting her forehead against his, her nose brushing up against his cheek. “Whatever you want, Iz.”

“Not for long,” she whispered, her words falling into his mouth. “I promise.”

* * *

It was a long, lonely trip back to Los Angeles. Isabelle was on the same flight as the guys, who had elected not to fly back on the jet out of solidarity, but even with them sitting next to her, even with Alex sitting right behind her, it felt like she was a million miles away. 

Jackie had made Isabelle promise her that she wouldn’t be mad if Jackie took the jet back. “Maybe I can calm her down,” she said once Tristan had passed out in her room, too angry or too tired or too intoxicated to continue fighting with Alex, at least for now. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Isabelle said, glancing up the stairs behind her. The guys were hauling suitcases down, bickering as quietly as they could in fear that Tristan would wake up. She saw Mark shove Alex, practically knocking him down the stairs, and she almost laughed, almost forgot everything that had just gone down. She turned back to Jackie. “I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”

“You didn’t,” Jackie said quickly, a wrinkle appearing on her forehead when she frowned. “You absolutely didn’t.”

“Promise.”

“Promise.” Jackie hugged her tightly, like they were about to be apart for weeks or months and not just a couple of hours. She looked at her carefully when she pulled back. “You deserve to be happy too.”

Isabelle just nodded, Jackie’s words playing in her head on the flight back to Los Angeles. For so long, she had watched Alex with Tristan, for so long she had wished that it was her instead. She wanted to be the one he went home with at night. She wanted to be able to kiss him whenever she wanted. She wanted to go back in time and make everything better. And for a few brief moments, everything had been perfect. For a few brief moments she had known what it meant to be loved on by him. But they couldn’t start a relationship under a cloud of doubt and hurt feelings and accusations, even if it wasn’t their doubt or feelings or accusations.

She wanted a clean slate. She just didn’t know how to accomplish that. And it seemed like the safest option to pull back completely, to go back to how things used to be until she could figure it out.

He didn’t have to wait but she sure hoped that he would.

When they got back to LAX, landing on the tarmac and making their way down the gangway and into the airport, Alex grabbed her hand. She looked at him, but he didn’t say anything, instead just worrying his lip between his teeth and holding on tight. And she let him, kept a firm grasp on his fingers through the bright expanse of airport in front of them and down the escalators and at baggage claim, on the curb and in the Uber. He didn’t let go until the car pulled up in front of their apartment complex, and he didn’t say much.

“I’ll see you at work?”

“Yeah.” Isabelle nodded, swallowing hard at the thought of having to go back to the restaurant and face Tristan, face Jackie, face everybody. “I’ll see you there.”

He had moved in just across the courtyard from her, but as they went their separate ways, she had never felt so far away from him. 

Isabelle spent the next twenty-four hours being terrified of going back to work, her stomach in knots from the second she woke up until the second she went to sleep, and she woke up with it still twisted so tightly that she thought she might threw up. She spent a couple of tense minutes in the bathroom, waiting to see if the little she had managed to eat would come back up, but it didn’t. She almost wished she had thrown up because maybe that would make her feel better.

Jackie had texted her when they had gotten back, telling her that she had tried to talk Tristan out of being so angry, but she had had no luck. Even better, every single one of them was working tonight. The only bright spot was that Isabelle and Alex were scheduled to be at the garden bar, and it was likely that Tristan would be put up front as usual, so they wouldn’t have to actively avoid her all night, the proximity of the bar doing that work for them.

When she wasn’t freaking out about facing Tristan, she was thinking about Alex. She wondered over and over whether she had made the right decision, whether she would be able to stay away from him, but she knew deep down that it was what she had to do. Right now they had no other options. When things calmed down - if they calmed down - they could reassess. 

Her heart was heavy in her chest as she walked the couple of blocks from her apartment to the restaurant, and she glanced around nervously as she stepped inside, the lights bright and the sun streaming in the windows. Mark was at the front bar, talking to Jen as she rolled silverware, Dayo coming around the corner with a bin full of glassware, and Dayo nodded to Isabelle when he saw her.

She scurried to the back room, glancing around as she shoved her shit into a locker and checked her hair in the mirror, making sure she had enough concealer on to hide the fact that she had barely slept at all in the last seventy-two hours between the traveling, the fighting, the drinking, and the anxiety. 

Someone popped around the corner and grabbed her arm, and she practically jumped out of her skin. “Jesus Christ, Jackie,” she said, pressing her palm flat to her chest. “Don’t fucking do that.”

“Sorry!” Jackie looked as nervous as she did, like she had about seventeen cups of coffee in her system which was probably the case. “She’s here.”

“Got it.” Isabelle grabbed her phone from the shelf in her locker, shoving it into her bra and hitching up her skirt, making a beeline through the back hallway towards the garden bar. As she skirted through the restaurant, she alternated between hoping Alex was already there so that he would be around to protect her and praying that he wasn’t because she wasn’t sure how she would feel being around him. 

He was there, bent over the bar, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and shirt unbuttoned so far she could see the top of his abs. He was tan from being in Mexico, his hair even lighter than normal, and all she wanted to do was kiss him. Goddamnit. 

“Hey,” he said, startling her out of her thoughts, and she quickly realized that she was standing in the middle of the room like a lunatic. He didn’t seem to notice, a big smile breaking over his face, and she genuinely felt her heart skip a beat. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she said automatically, breathing the words out like they were sacred. She had memorized every moment of their night together in Mexico, flashes of him skipping through her brain. She could still feel his lips on her neck as they floated in the ocean together, the sand under her feet as she followed him into the house, his chest warm against her as he pushed her into the mattress. 

“What are you thinking about?” Alex asked her, a smirk playing across his mouth.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

“You’re blushing.”

Isabelle turned away, dropping her phone on the counter as she hopped over the bar. “I am not,” she said, knowing that even addressing it was going to make her blush even more.

“You’re such a liar,” Alex said, his eyes flashing teasingly at her under the lights, and for a moment she forgot the shitshow they had gotten themselves into.

The moment passed quickly, Leven coming around the corner, flustered as always, her hair shoved into a bun on top of her head. “What the hell happened in Mexico?” she demanded in lieu of a greeting.

“Well, it’s good to see you too, Lev,” Alex said calmly. 

“Tell me now.” She wasn’t asking this time. “Tristan is up there saying she never wants to see either of you two again.”

Isabelle kept her head down, moving over to the sink to grab a bar rag and wipe down the counter in front of her. She figured Alex was better equipped to handle this one. He hesitated, and she knew he was looking over at her, could feel it in the heat on the side of her face. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “I have moved on from our relationship and she doesn’t really like that.”

There was a long silence, Isabelle eventually glancing up. Leven had her eyebrows furrowed, tongue caught between her teeth as she studied Alex. “The two of you?”

“Yes.” Alex’s answer came quickly, Isabelle’s heart jumping at the thought of the two of them being the two of them. 

“You promised me there would be no issue. You promised me you could work together. You promised you wouldn’t fight in my restaurant.”

“I still promise that,” Alex said. “I just… I can’t speak for her.”

“Fuck.” Leven squinted, pressing the palm of her hand to the bridge of her nose, like even having this conversation was a headache. “Okay. We just need to get through tonight, and then we need to talk.”

“I know.” Alex sighed. “I’ll do my best, Lev.” 

“I’m trusting you.” She turned to leave, throwing a look back over her shoulder. “Isabelle, if there is any issue, come find me.”

“Okay.” She had to force the word out. “I will.”

“It’s gonna be bad, isn’t it?” Alex asked her once Leven had turned the corner. “She’s really mad.”

“We’ll make it through,” Isabelle said, trying to reassure herself as much as Alex. “We have to.”

They almost made it.

It had been a pretty uneventful night, a couple hundred covers so nothing too crazy. They were solidly busy the entire time, moving around each other and passing drinks back and forth and keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Isabelle almost forgot that everything was fucked up, almost forgot that two nights ago they were having sex in Mexico, almost forgot that he had told her he didn’t want to wait anymore. It honestly felt like they were just friends again, like they were ignoring the chemistry crackling between them, and she felt the weight lift off her chest a little bit.

They had just been cut, and the last customers had filtered out of the garden. It was still pretty early, just a little after eleven o’clock, and Isabelle couldn’t wait to get home, shower, fall into bed, and sleep for twenty-four hours. She was going to turn off her phone, pull down the blackout shades, and refuse to acknowledge the outside world until she had caught up on sleep.

Of course that plan was too good to be true.

Alex had just gone into the kitchen to drop off some beer glasses that needed to be washed when Tristan came flying into the garden, Jackie and Jen hot on her heels. Jackie was trying to grab her arm, drag her backwards, but she was a head taller than Jackie and her legs stretched on for miles. Isabelle could hear Jackie snap at her - “Tristan! Jesus fuck, wait!” - but Tristan didn’t slow down for even a second, coming right up to the bar, and Isabelle had to force herself to stay still, to stand her ground, to not back up into the back bar. 

Tristan was just opening her mouth to say something, and her eyes were practically black, flashing angrily, when Alex came sprinting out of the kitchen, skidding into the bar area and planting himself firmly in front of Isabelle. 

“Tris,” he said, his voice scary and low. Isabelle had never heard him talk that before; she wanted to reach out and touch his back, but she didn’t, clasping her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Stop.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she spit at him. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

“No.” Again with the voice. “We aren’t doing this here.”

“You and I aren’t doing anything. I want to talk to her.”

“She didn’t do anything.”

“She fucked my boyfriend.”

She saw something move out of the corner of her eye, turned and saw Jack and Dayo practically fall through the kitchen door, catching themselves on the edge of the bar and staring at her wide-eyed, looking back and forth between her and Alex and Tristan. 

“No, she didn’t,” Alex said, his voice getting louder at the end, and Isabelle wondered if Leven was going to hear them and fire them, and then she wondered why that was the question she was focusing on at this moment. “We slept together after you and I had broken up, and we both know our relationship has been over for a long fucking time, even before it was actually over.”

Tristan was still hidden from view, but there was a long pause, and Isabelle wondered what she was doing. “Tristan,” she heard Jen say. “Come on. Don’t do this.”

“Fuck off,” Tristan said, her voice sharp.

“Tris!” a chorus of voices said all together, from all over the room: Jackie and Alex and Jack and Mark, who had appeared from the side door. Who the hell was watching the front bar, Isabelle thought. “Shut the fuck up, Tristan,” Dayo said, stepping forward menacingly, Jack jumping in front of him to hold him back.

Isabelle was convinced that Leven was going to come back there at any moment, looking for her missing bartenders or waitresses or having heard the conversation that was quickly devolving into yelling. She stepped out from behind Alex, being careful not to brush up against him. “Okay,” she said, hoping that her voice wasn’t wavering. “Talk.”

Her directness seemed to catch Tristan off guard; she knew Tristan was used to being in control, to being the one in charge of the conversation. “How could you?” Tristan said, and for a second Isabelle actually felt bad for her. That feeling dissipated quickly. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“If you wanna talk about this, I think we should do it outside.” Isabelle glanced around. “Without an audience preferably.”

“Fine.” Tristan whirled around, stalking away and assuming Isabelle was following her. She grabbed her phone, shoving it into the waistband of her skirt and made her way around the bar, only to find Alex close behind her.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“I gotta protect my girl,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice even a little bit, and her elation at being called his girl was quickly washed away by the prospect that Tristan might have heard him.

“No.” She put her hand on his chest, pushing him backwards firmly. “I have to do this myself.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Isabelle knew that if he came with her, it would turn into a long, drawn out screaming match between him and Tristan. She just wanted it over with. She just wanted it done. And if she heard him mutter something like “God, I love you” as she walked away with, well… it might bolster her courage a little bit.

Tristan had already lit up a cigarette when Isabelle made it into the alley behind the restaurant. “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said as Isabelle came up behind her, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the little wrought iron table across from her.

“I don’t feel like that’s true,” Isabelle said. Tristan seemed even more intimidating now that it was just the two of them out here. She could say whatever she wanted with no consequences. “Since you just came at me screaming.”

“I thought I did.” Tristan blew out a long stream of smoke, not looking Isabelle in the eye. “But then I realized it doesn’t really matter what the fuck you do. Or what Alex does, for that matter.”

Okay. She would bite. “Why’s that?”

“Because.” Tristan finally looked at her, her gaze sharp, pinning Isabelle down. “I just texted my dad.” Uh oh. “And he’s going to fire Alex.”

There was a whole lot Isabelle wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure what would come out if she opened her mouth, if her words would be coherent or if she would start screaming or if she wouldn’t be able to speak at all. Finally, she decided that the last option would probably the best. “Okay,” she ground out, biting her tongue. “Then I guess we’re done here.”

Everyone had scattered by the time she got back into the garden bar. Not even Alex was there, but she knew she needed to warn him as soon as possible, give him some sort of heads up. She pushed through the kitchen and into the front bar. Dayo and Jack were back behind the bar, Mark sitting at the end of the bar, partially hidden by a giant plant, counting his tips from the night. The dining room was packed, Jen moving through the tables, leaning over to talk to someone, the light from the candle on the table in front of her catching her hair.

Isabelle didn’t know if she could work here without Alex. What had seemed like her dream job just a couple of months ago now seemed bleak without him. 

Jackie appeared from the back hallway, catching Isabelle’s eye and waving her over. She weaved through the tables, noticing as she got closer that Jackie’s face was pale. “Are you okay?” Isabelle asked as soon as she got within earshot. Jackie caught her arm, her fingers wrapping around her wrist. “I know that was a lot, and I’m sorry. I’m trying to take care of it-”

Jackie cut her off. “Isabelle. Alex just quit.”


	10. we can go wherever the road decides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / get in the car, i'll drive, we got no place to be on time  
> / so let's just enjoy the ride, we can go wherever the road decides or  
> / we can head for the shore or some place we've never been before  
> / just climb in and close the door, we've got nothing to answer for  
> belong by cash cash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just do me a favor and pretend that the stuff that happens in this chapter is both practical and feasible.

They were all in Los Angeles because they wanted something.

When Isabelle had gotten here, she hadn’t really known what she had wanted concretely. All she knew was that she wanted a change of pace, a different city, new experiences. Working at Lux, she got all that. But she also got so much more. She got friends. She got memories. And she got Alex. 

She had grown up writing, scribbling in notebooks and playing scenarios out in her head and putting in her ten thousand hours. But she couldn’t write something like this; she couldn’t write an Alex because she had never met someone like him before. And the prospect of losing him made her heart twinge in her chest.

He was already gone from the restaurant by the time Jackie told her what had gone down. Apparently everyone had seen him go into Leven’s office, had heard him quit, had heard Leven begging him not to. Tristan came storming back in a few minutes later looking for him, only to be informed by Jackie just like Isabelle had been that he had quit.

Jackie and Isabelle were cowering in the server’s hallway, trying to hear what was going on in Leven’s office. Jackie had pushed Isabelle back there when Tristan had come back into the restaurant, and she could hear Jackie tell Tristan that Alex had quit, to which Tristan released a stream of swear words. This was immediately followed by Leven screaming at her to come into her office in a tone that not even Tristan could ignore, and now Jackie and Isabelle were straining to listen.

Luckily, neither of them were keeping their voices lowered. “What the hell did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Tristan said, sounding almost bored. “His time here was up anyways.”

“He’s our best bartender,” Leven snapped. “We’re fucked without him.”

“It’s L.A., for fuck’s sake! Walk out on the street and you’ll find a bartender.”

“Tristan-”

“Don’t forget who owns this place,” Tristan said, her voice sending a chill down Isabelle’s spine. 

“Don’t threaten me,” Leven said, her voice equally icy. Alex hadn’t told Isabelle a lot about his relationship with Leven, but she knew the two were incredibly close, Leven like the older sister he had never had. She had taken him under her wing when he had gotten to the city, giving him a chance and grooming him into a really great bartender. He had told Isabelle a couple of times that he owed everything he had here in Los Angeles to Leven. And Isabelle knew that Leven would fight for him.

Her phone dinged, a text coming through, and Jackie hit her lightly on the arm, still leaning around the corner to see what was going on. Leven and Tristan were yelling at each other now, and Isabelle backed up towards the lockers, pulling her phone out to see Alex’s name. The text just said “come over.”

“Hey,” Isabelle whispered. “I’ve gotta go.”

Jackie looked back at her. “Alex?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Jackie reached back, squeezing her hand. “Text me later?”

“Always.”

She slipped out the back door, leaving Jackie behind to continue spying on Tristan and Leven. None of the servers had been cut yet, so she knew that Tristan and Jackie and Jen would all be stuck at the restaurant for another hour, and there would be no chance of this fight continuing outside of Lux, at least for now.

She expected to have to climb the stairs to his apartment, but when she got into the courtyard, he was sitting on the steps, turning over an unlit cigarette in his hands. “Hey!” she said when she got close enough for him to hear her, and he whipped his head up, shoving the cigarette back in his pocket. He hadn’t changed out of his uniform yet, his shirt still unbuttoned, the tan of his skin almost glowing under the light of the moon. “What the hell happened?”

Alex crossed the space between them in just a few steps. He didn’t answer her question, didn’t say anything, didn’t give her a chance to speak; he just grabbed her as soon as he got close enough and kissed her. It felt like he was trying to make up for all the time that they had lost, for everything that had happened both in and out of their control. It felt like was trying to say all the things that they hadn’t had a chance to talk about yet.

When he finally pulled back, not loosening his grip around her waist, they were both breathing hard, trying to catch a breath. Isabelle felt like her skin was on fire, like sparks would fly up where he was touching her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sorry for what?”

“For making you wait.” He brushed a piece of hair out of her face. “For making us wait.” He took a deep breath, the words falling off his tongue. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, and I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“Good.” She slipped her hand inside his shirt, the muscles hard under her fingers and his skin soft against hers. “I’m not letting go.”

“So…” Alex’s eyes looked even bluer than normal, piercing right through her. “My place or yours?”

* * *

He hadn’t meant to quit. Really.

Alex loved Lux. He loved bartending. He loved Leven. He loved getting to work with all of his friends. But being here in someone else’s bar, playing by someone else’s rules, had never been his goal. This had never been what he wanted in the long term.

He hadn’t been sure of anything in a long time, but if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he wanted Isabelle. He wanted her more than he wanted to be a bartender; he wanted her more than he wanted to stay at Lux; he wanted her more. So when it came down to it, quitting was an easy decision, even if it was unexpected to everyone including him.

He had watched Isabelle follow Tristan out into the alley, his heart sunk practically into his stomach. He had tried to go with her, but she wouldn’t let him, looking him in the eye and firmly telling him that she could handle it. If he hadn’t known before that he was head over heels for this girl, then he sure as hell knew it now. And he knew they had no future if they were both here, surrounded by Alex’s ex-girlfriend and his past and his baggage. They had no future if he was constantly worried about losing his job.

So after Isabelle disappeared with Tristan, he went straight into Leven’s office. She was hunched over an order form, getting ready to place the bar order for the next week, but she looked up when he came in, frowning at the look on his face. “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately. They had worked together for so long, were so close that she could always tell when something was bothering him, no matter how little it was, without him having to say anything. And this certainly wasn’t little.

He was going to tell her that he needed to take some time off, that he needed Tristan to be scheduled separately, that he needed Leven to step in and mediate. Instead, he found himself saying something completely different. 

“I quit.”

The words came out before he could stop them; he had no idea where they came from, just knew it was somewhere deep in his subconscious, and he instantly felt better. Leven pushed back from her desk, her mouth dropping open. “What?”

Alex felt more sure of himself, repeating the words steadily. “I’m sorry, Lev. But I quit.”

She stood up. “Wait, what? What happened? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I love you,” he said firmly. “You’ve been the best boss I ever could have asked for. But my time here is up. I’m sorry I can’t give you more notice.”

“Alex, no, wait.” She came around the desk, standing in front of him and grabbing his hands. “What can I do? Do you want more money? Do you want more hours? Less hours? Time off? Do you want me to schedule you on opposite shifts from Tristan? Let me figure it out.”

“Lev.” He squeezed her hands, and he could tell by the shift in her eye that she knew his mind was made up. There was nothing she could say that would be able to bring him back. “It’s okay. I have to do this.”

She hugged him tightly, and for a brief second he thought about staying. But he knew that if Tristan hadn’t convinced her father to fire him yet, it would come down the pipe eventually. He couldn’t live his life in fear. He couldn’t live his life waiting to see what was going to happen to him. He couldn’t live his life with someone else calling all of the shots. He couldn’t live his life without Isabelle in it.

“We’ll meet up soon,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “Call me tomorrow.”

Alex nodded. “I will. I promise.”

He looked around for Isabelle when he walked out of the office, wanted to tell her in person, but he didn’t see her and he sure didn’t want to risk running into Tristan. He went out the front door, knowing that Tristan and Isabelle had been in the alley, and he resisted the urge to text her right away, not wanting Tristan to see and get even more heated.

Once he got back to the apartment complex, he sat down on the steps on the stoop of his building, the courtyard spread out around him. It was studded with full trees and red brick and ivy climbing the walls, and it looked more like the dorms at an Ivy League college than a Los Angeles apartment building, and he was in the courtyard he almost forgot he was in California, feeling back at home in Boston. 

He pulled out his phone, found a loose cigarette in his pocket that was only a little smushed, and he texted Isabelle, just saying simply “come over.” He figured that by now she would have heard that he quit, and he owed her an explanation above anyone else. He was hoping that she was done talking to Tristan, that she could just be here with him, no more distractions, no more reasons not to be together, no more bad habits or unintended consequences or ex-girlfriends getting in the way. 

He was just cupping his hand around the cigarette, about to light it, when he realized that he didn’t want to kiss Isabelle if he tasted like smoke, and he pulled it out of his mouth, looking at it. He was just about to shove it back into his pocket when he heard her voice, looked up to see her barreling towards him, and he jumped up, making his way over to her in a couple of steps and kissing her like it was the first time all over again.

* * *

“So I don’t want to step on your moment,” Isabelle said a couple of hours later. “But now what?”

Alex hadn’t unpacked anything; his apartment was full of boxes, furniture scattered around, piles of clothes where he had thrown them looking for his Lux uniform earlier that day, but his bed was set up and she was next to him in it now, tucked underneath his arm, her head on his shoulder. “Hmm?” He didn’t want to think, just wanted to fall asleep next to his girlfriend. He could deal with the rest of his life in the morning.

She did not seem to agree, pushing herself up onto an elbow and looking down at him. “Alex.”

“Isabelle.” He stretched an arm up under his head, smirking at her.

They had barely made it through the door of his apartment before he had her clothes off, didn’t make it to the bedroom at all at first. It was different, not like the night in Mexico. He wasn’t worried about his ex-girlfriend coming through the door, wasn’t thinking about being quiet or hiding anything or what might come next. He wasn’t wondering where they were going to stand after this.

He knew: she was his.

“Come on,” she said, pouting at him. “Tell me what happened.”

“I just… I couldn’t do it anymore. You’re more important than that job. My happiness is more important than that job.”

“But you love bartending.”

“Exactly. I can bartend anywhere.” He shrugged. “I’ve got some savings left. I’ll be fine for a couple of months until I can find something.”

“What do you need from me?”

He was pretty positive that in the two years he had been with Tristan, she had never really asked him how she could him. She was there for him; she paid for stuff; she took him on trips and bought him things and tried to make him into the person she wanted to be. But she really only did things for her own benefit, and Isabelle couldn’t be further from that person. He shook his head slightly, trying to push away the comparison. There was no need to think about Tristan anymore, not now when he had everything he had ever wanted.

“Nothing.” He flipped her over, holding himself up above her and looking down at her. He leaned in to kiss her, pausing just before his lips touched hers. “I just need you next to me.”

“Always.” 

He was sure that they didn’t end up going to sleep until around three in the morning, staying up and talking and fooling around and ordering pizza to eat on the floor of the kitchen off paper plates when they realized they hadn’t had dinner, the pizza box discarded and forgotten off to the side when Isabelle pushed Alex onto his back on the floor, moving over him softly. And yet, they were woken up around eight o’clock by someone banging incessantly on the door.

Alex’s first thought was that it was Tristan, and he eased himself out of bed carefully, trying not to wake up Isabelle who could apparently sleep through anything. He left her there, grabbing his sweatpants from the floor and hopping into them as he looked through the peephole in the door. Well, that definitely wasn’t Tristan.

Jackie burst through the door like she owned the place, Jack and Dayo and Leven right behind her. “Were you sleeping?” she demanded.

“It’s eight in the morning, Emerson,” he said, yawning as if on cue. “I was up late.”

“Why?” Jackie narrowed her eyes at him. “What on earth were you-”

Isabelle appeared at Alex’s bedroom door, rubbing her eyes, dressed only in Alex’s t-shirt, which was thankfully long enough on her to disguise the fact that she wasn’t wearing underwear. “Hey, do you want coffee?” she asked before realizing that the living room was full of people. “Oh shit.” She disappeared, slamming the door behind her.

Everyone stared at Alex expectantly, and all he could do was shrug. Jack slapped him on the back, his face reddening slightly, and he was glad that his friends were all people who didn’t require any explanation, who could just go with the flow. It looked like a struggle for Jackie to keep her mouth shut, but she did, and he would repay her by explaining everything later.

“What are you all doing here?”

“Can you put on a shirt, Alexander?” 

“Why?” He grinned at Jackie. “Are you distracted?” But he went into his room, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over his head. Isabelle was pulling on pants, the tops of her ears glowing red. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“No idea.” He dropped a kiss onto the top of her head as he passed her on his way back to the door, a warm feeling settling into his stomach. “You wanna come find out?”

She followed him back out to the living room, sitting down next to Jackie on the couch. Dayo was muttering something about the couch that had almost killed him, but they all fell silent when Alex sat down, looking at them all expectantly. “Okay. What’s going on?”

Everyone looked towards Leven. She probably hadn’t gotten much sleep either, but she looked perfect as usual, no indication on her face of what was going on. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “After you left yesterday, everything kind of went to shit.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I-”

Leven shook her head, cutting him off. “Don’t be sorry. I get it.” She took a deep breath. “So I quit too.”

“What?” The word exploded out of Alex’s mouth, and he leaned forward. “You did what?”

“I quit,” she repeated, and the firmness in her voice made it very clear very quickly that she wasn’t fucking with him, that she was being serious, that something big was going on that he hadn’t been aware of until just now. 

“I’m quitting too,” Jackie said.

Alex turned towards her, and he could see Isabelle next to him, her eyes wide. He was about to say something when Jack spoke up. “Me too.”

What the hell was going on? “Same,” Dayo said, rounding out the circle of crazy announcements.

“You guys,” he said. “That’s fucking ridiculous. Why would you do that?”

“Hear me out,” Leven said. “I’ve been at Lux for almost ten years now. You know I started as a host, and then started serving and bartending, and then moved up to management. But that’s as far as I can go, and I want something more.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Just listen, Ludwig.” She glanced at Jackie, who nodded at her encouragingly. “I want my own bar,” she said. “That’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve just been waiting for the right time, which I think is now. And I’ve been waiting for the right business partner.” She stopped talking, looking at Alex like he was supposed to know what to say. 

Isabelle poked him in the ribs with an elbow. “What, me?” he asked, genuinely shocked. “Lev, I-”

“You know the industry,” she said, laying out her points carefully. “You’re a kick ass bartender. You’ve been here for years. And you’re passionate about it. I know who to hire and who to schedule and how much to order and how to run a restaurant.”

“What about all the business stuff?” Alex asked. He was protesting, but the idea was lodging itself in his brain, seeming more plausible by the second. “What about getting loans and liquor licenses and renting a space and creating a budget? I don’t know shit about that.”

“I’ve been doing the books for years,” Leven said. “And your girlfriend has an MBA.”

Alex looked at Isabelle. “You do?”

She shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You never told me that.”

“Never came up.” She turned her attention back to Leven. “Consider this my resignation, Lev.”

“Iz.” Alex shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask. I’m offering, and I’m not giving you the option to say no. We’re in this with you.” Isabelle looked around at everyone, who nodded. Alex wondered if she had had any idea that this was going to happen because she seemed to be really rolling with the punches as they came. 

“We can’t just poach the entire restaurant,” Alex said, although he would love to see Tristan’s face when she figured out what the heck was going on. 

“We aren’t,” Leven said. “At least not yet. I gave my two weeks to Mr. de Vries this morning, and he asked me to stay for another month so that’s what I’m going to do. Jackie and Jack and Dayo haven’t said anything yet because they’re going to stay until we have a for sure soft open date.” She took a deep breath, and Alex knew that she had been thinking about this for a whole lot longer than eight hours. 

“Okay.” Alex sat back. He desperately wanted a cigarette, feeling like his heart might beat out of his chest, like he was right on the edge of a panic attack, but then Isabelle curled her fingers around his own, bringing him back. “So what’s next?”

“Well.” Leven reached into her bag, pulling out her computer and setting it down on top of the box that was serving as a makeshift coffee table. “I think I found the perfect place.”

They spent the next couple of hours in Alex’s living room, Jack and Dayo leaving to go get breakfast and coffee as Leven walked Alex through the plans that she had already worked out. There was a bar in West Hollywood, not that far from Lux or the apartment complex where Isabelle and Alex lived that had just been foreclosed on; the price was right and Leven explained her vision to Alex, big and industrial with giant chandeliers and exposed brick. She told Alex exactly how much she had in her bank account and exactly how much she thought she could get a loan for, to which Alex spit coffee all over Jackie who practically attacked him. She said that he could staff the restaurant however he wanted, bring in new bartenders, train them exactly how he had been trained, so that he could be sure he could trust them.

“You can still jump behind the bar whenever you want,” she told him. “But now you’re in charge.”

He was in charge. It was a new concept for him, but one that was becoming more real by the second. This was what he wanted for years; he had never considered that he could actually get it. 

“I made an appointment at the bank for this afternoon,” she said. “So you need to be ready to go in…” She looked at her watch. “Thirty minutes.”

Alex took the fastest shower of all time, pushing his hair down in the mirror to look as presentable as he could. While he was getting ready, Isabelle was sifting through his boxes to find a shirt with a collar, pulling it out and hanging it in the bathroom so the steam could get rid of the wrinkles. She disappeared for a little while, and he was just tying his tie when she came back into the apartment, dressed in a suit and looking entirely different from the person he had just spent months standing next to in a bar.

“Holy shit,” he said, his hands stilling over the knot of his tie. “You look hot.”

She came up to him, finishing the knot for him, pushing the tie up to his collar. “Is it okay if I come?”

“You’re gonna be our business advisor,” he said. They had talked at length about what Isabelle’s role would be this morning; she said she just wanted to bartend, although they had offered her a cut and asked her to be the manager, both of which she declined. She finally came up with a compromise, offering to help with whatever they needed on the business side, to handle the books and the paperwork and deal with the financial side of things when they came up, as long as she could still be a bartender. “Plus you did promise you would be right next to me.”

She smiled up at him, smoothing down the shoulders of his shirt. “I sure did.”

He slid his hands around her waist underneath her jacket, running them up her back and leaning down to kiss her. “Okay,” she said after a few moments, pushing him backwards. “We don’t want to be late.”

“You would be such a great manager,” he tried one more time. “You’re already bossing me around.” 

She shook her head. “Owner trumps manager. Plus I prefer it if you boss me.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, we can totally try that later if that’s what does it for you.”

Two hours later they walked out of the bank, loan secured. Leven had been great, doing most of the talking and totally hiding the fact that Alex was shitting his pants. Isabelle laid out their business plan, walking the banker through it like she had been working on it for her entire life and not just a few hours. Alex brought the experience, humanizing the whole process as much as he could and pushing it past numbers and into the real world. 

“Holy fuck,” Leven said, turning to him once they were outside in the sunshine and grabbing his hand. “We did it.”

“You were worried?”

“I was freaking out!” She reached up, letting her hair out of the tight bun that it was wrapped up in, falling around her shoulders and catching the light. “When he started asking about profit margins and what our expected ROI is and timelines, I damn near lost it. Thank God we brought Isabelle.”

Alex hooked an arm around Isabelle’s waist, throwing the other around Leven’s shoulder and pulling them both towards him. “Thank you,” he murmured to Leven. “You have no idea what this means.”

“Of course I do.” Leven looked up at him. “I’ve known you for years.” She paused. “You wanna go see the place?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Alex looked down at Isabelle on his other side. “Yes,” they said together. “Let’s go,” Alex added.

They had to walk past Lux to get to the new bar. It was just before five o’clock and Alex could picture the restaurant perfectly. They would just be getting ready for dinner service, servers sitting at the tables rolling silverware, bartenders cutting fruit and getting mixers ready and polishing the top of the bar until it shone, barbacks bringing up ice and glasses. Liam would be in the office or at a dining room table or sitting at the bar, assigning sections and mediating disputes and working on the scheduling for the next week. 

It felt weird to know that he wasn’t a part of that anymore, that he would never again step behind Lux’s bar, that if he ever went in there again it would be as a customer and not as an employee. 

They neared Lux, the front door propped open to let the breeze in, and there were people already seated on the front patio. Alex could see Tristan through the amount door, standing at one of the POS stations, her hair falling down her back. “Hey.” He stopped, letting Isabelle and Leven get ahead of him. “Text me the address and I’ll meet you there.”

They both looked into the restaurant, saw Tristan, knew exactly what Alex needed to do. “Okay.” Leven glanced at Isabelle, who just shrugged. “We’ll see you there.” She started to turn away, but Alex grabbed her, pulling her towards him and kissing her. “What was that for?” she asked, a little breathless when he pulled away.

“Just because,” he said. They had a whole lot of just because ahead of them, and it felt like he would never be able to get enough of her. “I’ll see you soon.”

They turned away, Leven hooking her arm through Isabelle’s as they walked down the street, and Alex took a deep breath, steeling himself to go into the restaurant and have the conversation that Tristan deserved. He skirted past the host stand, not wanting anyone to see him, until he was right up behind her. He cleared his throat, and she whirled around.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes narrowed, but he knew that she had been crying at some point recently, her undereye concealer barely hiding the dark circles underneath her eyes, the skin looking almost bruised. “You quit.”

“Can I talk to you?”

She looked around. The restaurant was relatively empty, the dinner rush still forthcoming. He knew she would say yes, knew she wanted the last word. “Out in the back,” she said shortly. He followed her through the restaurant, the whole place feeling different now that it was no longer his second home. People were looking at him, and he kept his head down, knowing that word of his resignation would have spread through the restaurant like wildfire. 

Alex followed Tristan to the lone table in the alley behind the restaurant, the table where they had spent so much time together, eaten hundreds of dinners and counted out tips and had a cigarette at the end of the long shift, the chair he used to sit in as she came around the table to plop down on his lap, kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. Their relationship had gone through so many downs, but at the beginning it was a hell of a lot of ups too. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out before she could say anything, and she stopped, her back still too him. He could see her shoulders tense visibly, and she didn’t turn towards him. “Tris… you know I never wanted to hurt you.”

For as long as he had known her, she had never expressed emotion well. It took Alex a long time to come up with words to describe what he was feeling, but eventually he got there; Tristan preferred to keep everything bottled up inside, releasing it in bursts. She crossed her arms, and he couldn’t tell for sure but it looked like she was crying.

“Tris?” he asked tentatively, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She flinched, moving away from him, but he reached out again, and she turned, tears streaking down her cheeks. “This isn’t…” He swallowed. “I don’t want to see you upset.”

“I am upset,” she said. “Clearly.” 

Alex stepped towards her, putting his arms around her, and she didn’t pull away, instead moved towards him. “You’re a force, Tristan,” he said, tightening his grip on her, feeling her slide her arms around his waist. “You need someone who can match that.”

“Yeah,” she said, and even when she was crying, she managed to keep her voice steady, kept the wall up. He had spent years trying to break it down, but maybe that wasn’t how it worked. Maybe she needed someone who was willing to climb it. She pulled back. “Good luck,” she said, and he knew that somehow she already knew what they were doing. 

“Thank you,” he said. She started to disappear back into the restaurant, heading up the stairs, and he was already heading down the alley towards the street when she called his name.

He turned, looking back at her. “I’ll see you around?” She almost smiled at him, the corner of her mouth quirking up in that very Tristan-esque way that he had gotten so used to over the last couple of years. 

“Yeah.” He nodded, knowing that this was the end of the book for them. At least the last word was going to be a good one. “I’ll see you around.”

It only took a couple of minutes to walk to the new bar, and he loosened his tie as he traveled the few blocks, checking the address that Leven had just sent to him. He knew the location, had passed it dozens of times. It wasn’t as pretty on the outside as Lux was, just a brick building that had at one point been an old firehouse, but there was a whole lot of potential, and he knew that if anyone could draw that potential out, it was Leven.

Alex paused in the doorway. Isabelle and Leven were standing in the middle of the cavernous room, the windows overhead letting light stream in. They were talking about names. “We could just call it Firehouse,” Leven said. 

“I like that,” Isabelle said thoughtfully. “What about District?”

“I think we should name it after me,” Alex said, coming up behind them, and Isabelle grinned the same way she always did when she saw him, like he had hung the moon. He didn’t know if he would ever get used to that.

“Okay, got it,” Leven said, nodding. “Headass.”

“Hey!”

He put his arm around Isabelle, looking around at the space and trying to imagine it full of people, full of his employees, his vision, his menu. 

Alex had been a student of bad habits for years, settling for less than he wanted, less than he could handle, less than he deserved. It took Isabelle coming around to push him into the mindset that he could do more, and it took Leven making an executive decision to make that dream come true. But now he was finally able to take control of his own future, and he couldn’t wait to see what it looked like.

He was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for your love, kudos, comments, and support: thank you from the bottom of my heart.


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